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Always Get Our Share
Author's Note: I'm sorry to announce that this chapter marks the final installation of this story. I am sad it has to be over, however, it is far from the last Les Mis story I will be writing; in fact I already have my next story planned. I hope you have all been enjoying it. I know I could have made Always Get Our Share a little longer, but I didn't want to drag out the decline of the Thénardier family so much so that it became a soap drama. On the other hand, this final chapter is nice and long, so hopefully that makes up for all this. I really hope you lot enjoyed this little ficlet, and that you will enjoy my next Les Mis story also.
Warning: Some implications to sexual activity in the early paragraphs, as well as mentions of domestic abuse and alcoholism. Reader discretion is advised.
Word Count: 5,774
oOo
Epilogue: How to Succeed in Business
January 1826
1825 was the year that everything turned rotten.
It started rather early in the year, in mid-January. That was when the late-night rows began, floating up the stairs and finding Éponine and Azelma and the Baby in their bedroom at night. Fractured, broken, angry noises. The occasional smashing of glasses. Then, later that night, in Maman and Papa's bedroom, loud bangs and crashes might be heard. The occasional gasp or moan. But mostly, there was just angry screaming. Sometimes it got so loud Azelma would cry. "Make them stop, 'Ponine," she'd sniffle.
In February, Éponine and Azelma suddenly had a lot more housework to do. Not just making their own beds, but cleaning and sometimes cooking. If they didn't work quickly enough then Maman would scold them and hit them upside the head. Once, Éponine was helping Maman wash the dishes and she dropped a plate. It hit the floor and shattered to pieces. Distressed, the girl apologised, but Maman slapped her right across the face with her meaty, wet hands, and hard, too. The water on her hands was cold and soapy. It dripped down Éponine's face and down her neck.
In March, Éponine and Azelma were encouraged to discreetly go through the book-bags of their classmates and the briefcases of their teachers. That made them both terribly nervous, but they did so, and slipped coins and watches into their own bags, carried the goods home and delivered them to Papa, who pocketed the money and locked all the treasures up in a chest. "For safekeeping," he said.
In April, Éponine began to notice for the first time that the bottles had begun to accumulate, and the liquor never went to the customers. They hardly ever had customers these days anyway. There were bottles of all kinds: wine, beer, and whiskey. Papa collected them and drank almost constantly. Sometimes he sent Éponine and Azelma out to the shop to buy some for him. His breath always stank and sometimes he got sick all over the table. Then he made Maman, or Éponine, or Azelma clean it up for him while he cleaned his teeth and went back to drinking.
Things continued on much in the same way throughout May and June. Éponine and Azelma hardly ever had much time to play, and they certainly didn't on the weekends, when they used to enjoy every free moment, though the sky was clear and blue and tempting and the weather was wonderful. Most of Éponine's dresses didn't at all fit her anymore and she never got any new ones. Azelma got lucky; for a good deal of Éponine's old dresses went to her, but all in all, the clothing was a little small on her, too. In those months, Éponine used her spare time wisely: unlike Azelma, who ran upstairs to play with her dolls, she would venture outside and go all the way to the border of the woods, climb the trees. She might spend hours sitting on the highest branches she could reach without doing anything, just daydreaming. Daydreaming was good because then she didn't have to live at home, in her head, anyway.
In July, Maman and Papa told Éponine and Azelma they were much too old for their dolls and they were to be sold. Azelma cried that day; it was one of the few times she threw a fit, but when Maman boxed her ears she obeyed and gathered all her rag dolls, sullen. Éponine didn't want to sell her dolls, either, but she didn't want to have her ears boxed so she did as she was told. They sold the dolls for a low price to the toy shop, but because there were so many, they returned home with five Francs jingling in their pockets. Papa took all the money, and by the end of next day, there were more bottles in the inn than there had ever been before, including a few bottles of vodka. "It's expensive — merciful heavens, it's expensive — but so very much worth it," he said. "Vodka is the drink of the gods, I tell you."
In August, it got worse still. Papa drank himself into a stupor most nights, and there were more rows. Sometimes, if Éponine and Azelma didn't always do as they were told or asked what he called a "silly question", they'd get hit, and harder than any slap or blow Maman had ever delivered. Sometimes he hit them for no good reason at all, if he was drunk enough. He hit Maman once that summer, when he was especially drunk. But usually he and Maman got on so well that they never argued, and so there was no reason for him to strike her. Besides, Maman was a loud, brash woman who had such an air of authority about her that most people, Papa included, knew better than to cross her.
In September, they legally named the Baby. Éponine heard them talking, but she didn't remember what the name was, and either way it didn't matter, because it was never uttered again. It was only a name and a signature on a bit of paper, for when he began school the next year. She supposed she'd find out what his official name was then, but to her, he was just the Baby, or her petit frère. "What's in a name," she said to Azelma, who didn't remember either. They'd read that scene from Shakespeare's play in her class, and Éponine thought she might be the only one who'd understood it even slightly.
In October, they started eating less. During the first week, Maman simply stopped sending them a lunch to school, but by the end of the month they had reached a low point where they didn't always have supper at night. Éponine was unused to hunger; all her life she and her sister and even the unloved Baby had gotten proper feeding each day: their bread and their cheese and their meat, and fruits and vegetables, too. "Why can't we have any soup?" Éponine said mournfully that night as she was sent off to bed with only a glass of water. Maman said they didn't have money, and what little they had must go to the customers. Not that they got customers very often these days; often the food would go to waste out back.
In November, Papa became continually more easily provoked and angered, and with his anger came his fists. The worst of it was after he'd hit them, when she or Azelma would remain huddled against a wall and whimpering, and he'd stand up with his fists shaking and glare at them. Would you look what you made me do, he always said. Would you just look at what you made me do. It was always Éponine's fault, or Azelma's. Never his. Those words sunk down in Éponine's stomach and made her feel ill.
And December was much the same, and Éponine Thénardier was a good girl: she bowed her head and took it. And she didn't even get the worst of it — that would be Azelma, who was so small and meek and easily confused. She cried more, and had taken to becoming unusually silent, had locked herself up in a little shell; barely speaking even to Éponine anymore. At school, too, she was quiet and never spoke out. During playtimes, Éponine had found her huddled behind the little schoolhouse drawing pictures in the snow with a stick or plucking at the lint on her cloak and skirt.
But it confused both children whenever, on the precious night that customers did come, Papa was the charming landlord all over again, and he didn't pay his daughters the time of day.
oOo
One January day in 1826, a year after things had begun turning bad, Éponine and Azelma were walking back home from school together, as they always did. Azelma walked ahead a little, her arms outstretched, and she hummed to herself softly. "I'm a bird," she explained to her sister when she received a quizzical look, before returning to her strange, private game. Every once in a while she would stop in her tracks and turn her head from side to side, flap her arms violently, and continue on.
Éponine trekked just behind her miserably, hugging her books to her chest. Her body was hunched against the wind. This winter was less bitter than the one before it, and the one prior to that, but she still didn't have a new cloak. Not only was this one a little small, it was starting to wear thin as well. She wondered, suddenly, if this was how the Lark sometimes felt, only worse of course because the Lark hadn't even had shoes. How strange that she thought of the old servant girl now; when she'd not spared her a single thought at all for well over a year. Now she wondered where Cosette had gotten to now, and if she was happy with the mysterious Man in the Yellow Coat, and if she had turned pretty and had fine toys. She was further confused to discover she didn't even know what to make of the Lark anymore. There was resentment, oh yes, because it was her fault everything had gotten so horrible. After all, things only started to change after she'd gone away. But on the other hand, for the first time in her life, Éponine felt just the tiniest bit sorry for her. It was a powerful dilemma for a girl of ten years to have, and she continued pondering on it the entire walk home.
But when she reached the inn's unhappy doors, she shrank inside just the slightest bit. She balanced carefully on the icy stoop, and stepped inside, quickly shutting the door behind her so as not to let the cold air in, Azelma just in front of her. Inside, it was unusually chilly, just as it was outside: she wasn't greeted with the warm and comforting crackle of the fireplace, and the floor under her feet was covered in shattered shards of glass. The entire place smelt vaguely of liquor (as it always did nowadays) and, for some reason, of ink.
Removing her cloak and helping Azelma with hers (as her sister had since stopped humming and abandoned her game; had grown quiet and withdrawn yet again), Éponine called out hesitantly, "Maman?" She hung their cloaks and hats up on the coat rack by the door, and stuffed her mittens into the sleeves. From the next room, Éponine could hear creaking floorboards and the muffled sounds of conversation, indicating she was not alone, but otherwise, there was nothing. Azelma reached up and grabbed her hat from the coat rack, hugged it to her chest tightly as if it were a doll or stuffed teddy. Out of sisterly instinct, Éponine stepped in front of her, though she didn't really know why. "Maman?" she called out again. "We are home."
Some more creaks, then Maman came out of the parlour. Her hair, which was usually done up in elaborate styles and decorated with stylish, stolen wooden combs, was tied into a messy bun at the back of her head. She had her apron on, though it didn't smell at all like cooking, and it was oddly soiled. "There you both are," she hissed, hurrying over to them and taking them both by the hand. She began to drag her two notably confused daughters through the eating room and towards the stairs. "What in the name of heaven took you so long? Your father and I have been waiting a long time."
"We didn't take any longer than usual," Éponine argued indignantly. "We only left school and started walking home straight away, as we always do." But Maman's angry glare was enough to make the girl shy away, and she fell silent. Next to her, Azelma stood stiffly, wringing her hands.
Maman ushered them up the stairs, ranting all the way. "You must listen to me closely, both of you, now. And there's no need for that petulant tone, listen to me! As you are both aware, we have been running short on money and last month, your Papa didn't pay the rent; meaning the landlord came over, and if we don't pay by the end of the week we shall be evicted. We still haven't the money to pay, so your father is writing a begging letter to a rich gent lives near the square. If we are lucky, he will come by, and give us some money and goods out of charity. I want you to fix this place up … hurry, be quick, we don't have all day … take off your gowns and fetch your old Sunday dresses, those'll do. And undo those silly little ringlets of yours, Éponine. Then come down to the parlour. And send your blasted brother down, too! I would have gotten him myself, but the brat's taken to barricading the door with a chair while you're away and he refuses to come out — defiant creature!" All this she said while leading them up the stairs, now she hovered over them before their bedroom door.
It was Azelma who was bold enough to ask a question. It was unexpected, but she sounded so meek and nervous she might as well not have said anything at all. "Landlord? But I thought we owned this place?"
Maman threw her arms in the air in frustration. "Ye gods, child, don't be idiotic! Of course we don't own this inn; do you think we're rich? We pay rent to run this establishment once a month. We're poor folk, in case that didn't sink in and reach your little brain. Now go inside your room and do as I told you." She turned and went down the stairs, muttering to herself.
Éponine knew that her brother had started barricading the door; he'd been doing so for over a month now and she couldn't blame him. He only opened the door to his sisters, and only when they knocked and called through. That was what Éponine did now, rapping on the door lightly with her knuckles and calling softly, "Baby? It's us, we're home now, it's alright." From behind the door she heard the pattering of feet, a scrape as he tugged the chair out from under the doorknob where he'd stuffed it, and opened to them. Éponine picked him up and passed through, Azelma at her tail. "You know," she said to her brother softly, "Maman says she wants you downstairs. Go along, and don't worry, she shan't strike you."
He looked at her, big blinking blue eyes meeting brown. Then he nodded slowly. "Alright." He let his sister set him down, and, after a nervous pause, padded out of the room. He was still in his sleep-clothes. Éponine watched him go, then shut the door. Azelma had sat on the edge of her cot and had taken to clinging to her hat ever tighter, her fingers stroking the fabric lovingly. She rocked back and forth a little where she sat, and Éponine decided to dig through their wardrobe.
She hadn't even the faintest idea why Maman might want them to fetch their old Sunday dresses, but she did as she was told and found the wretched, stiff grey dresses stuffed at the very back of the wardrobe, wrinkled. Hers was dated about two years old, and Azelma's just a little older. They would surely be too small, but she didn't ask questions as she undid her ringlets, letting her dark hair fall loose about her shoulders, handed her sister one dress, and the girls headed back downstairs, going to the parlour as had been requested.
In the past few months, the parlour had been the nicest room in the inn, always clean. The walls had been lined in plush faux velvet settees and armchairs and sofas. There was always a friendly fire crackling in the hearth and bowls of fruit on the small tables and beneath the window there had been a writing desk equipped with stacks of fresh paper, a pen, and a fancy inkwell always full of ink. Now, the room was dirty, with more broken glass spread on the floor and several crumpled pieces of paper lying about. Maman was sitting in one of the armchairs with the Baby on her knee, and she seemed to be working at his blond hair, but making it messy for some reason. Papa was hunched over the writing desk with a pen in one hand and his omnipresent bottle in the other. This one contained whiskey, and was about half-full. He did not even look up as they entered the room. He was wearing a pair of round, gold-rimmed spectacles on the tip of his nose, and Éponine wondered why, for as far as she was aware, Papa's eyesight was perfect.
"We've fetched the dresses," Éponine said softly, holding out the stiff grey gown as proof. She wondered if she would be scolded for not putting them on, but she had since learned it was best to take Maman's instructions literally, word for word. She heaved a little sigh of relief when her mother lifted the Baby from her knee, setting him on the ground, and came up to them, looking pleased, and only now did Papa look up.
"Oh, excellent," he said, then, louder. "Excellent." Éponine wondered what was so excellent about a pair of old Sunday dresses, but Papa went on, standing now. He clasped his hands together and took to pacing the room. "Go fetch some knives from the kitchen and cut them up a bit; and don't try to be neat about it. And not too much, we don't this to look deliberate, now, do we? Then, smear some ashes from the fireplace onto them, we want the dresses dirty. And you, boy," he now addressed the Baby, who looked frightened at being spoken to directly by his father, "run along back upstairs and bring me some old rags and patches of cloth. Any kind of cloth, bed linen, cotton, it doesn't matter. Bring them to me, and then you can stay out of the way, you're much too troublesome to bother with." The Baby disappeared.
Maman had already gone to the kitchen in search of knives, now she emerged and had taken to cutting up the dresses. "I'll do this," she said roughly when Éponine reached for them. "Go dirty your faces a little with the ash, and clear up all these papers on the floor. I'll give you these to wear when they're ready." When the girls paused, her eyes flashed dangerously. "Go!" she barked, and they went, bending and picking up the crumpled pieces of paper from the floor. Éponine tried to flatten one out, intending to read it, but the ink was smeared and she could only make out a few words here and there. She noticed Maman was glaring at her still, so she finished collecting the balls of paper and headed outside to dispose of them. Azelma followed her, as she usually did.
Once they were outside, Azelma spoke up. "'Ponine? Whatever is going on?" Her breath and fear caught in the frigid air, forming a little foggy cloud.
There were some old crates behind the inn in which Papa kept the used bottles he didn't break for the bottle-collectors to gather when they came by on the weekend. Éponine lifted the lid of one, and stuffed her share of wadded-up paper inside, and her sister followed suit. "I don't know," she snapped. "I can't know everything."
"Oh."
They hurried back inside to escape the cold, not that it made much difference. When they got there, the Baby had come back downstairs, holding a small wicker basket filled with various patches and scraps of fabric. Éponine recognised one of her doll's bonnets in the mix; it must have been in her armoire and not in her toy-chest with her other doll's things. He set the basket down on the writing desk next to Papa, wheeled on the spot, and took off.
Their father barely glanced over his shoulder as his son bolted the room. He glanced in the basket and nodded his approval, then turned to his daughters, who were standing, confused and nervous, in the doorway. "Have you disposed of the papers? Good. Now I want you to put these into the hearth, and start a good fire. After that you may put on your Sunday finest." He inclined his head towards the dresses, which Maman had finished with; they were spread out side-by-side on the largest sofa. They looked to be in a sorry state, all cut up and dirty.
Azelma, Éponine was surprised, was feeling bold today, for she spoke up. "Won't wood make a better fire?" she asked quietly. A faint tremor in her voice. There was a pile of firewood in the stable; Papa had cut it himself not a fortnight ago.
In response, Papa merely snorted. "I knew you were slow but I didn't know you were stupid. Rag fires will make ashes and soot quicker, and that's what we want."
Éponine didn't dare to ask any more questions, and Azelma swallowed hard and didn't utter another word, instantly getting to work. She grabbed the basket in her small hands and crouched by the fireplace, beginning to deposit the cloth strips into the hearth. Éponine hesitated, glancing at Papa for a moment, as he'd returned to writing his letter, before joining her sister. They then slipped upstairs to put on their "Sunday finest." Both dresses were considerably too small on them, and Éponine's was so tight at the waist she wondered if this was what it was like to wear a corset. She was too young for a corset yet, but she'd overheard some of the older girls at school complain about their corsets. As for Maman, she was large enough that surely no corset would fit her, and she wasn't the sort of woman to care besides. Now dressed, the sisters walked downstairs together to meet Papa yet again in the parlour. Azelma grabbed for her older sister's hand, and Éponine took it, holding it tightly. They waited as patiently as they could, sitting on the sofa, as Papa wrote. There would be no gain in interrupting him. He would notice them when he wanted to.
After about ten minutes had gone by according to the mantle clock, Papa had red over his letter and stuffed it into an envelope, scratching an address on the front of the envelope before finally standing. He held it out. "Here," he said. "Take this, deliver it to the address I've written on the front. A man by the name of Fitzroy should answer the door. You must tell him you are the daughters of Monsieur Thénardier, and that we are poor and in need of money. Come up with a sob story if you want on your way, just make sure it's enough to get that man to come here and give us something. And don't take your cloaks — they're much too fancy for beggars. Take some old shawls instead. Leave your hats and mittens, too: your mother can hide them away somewhere."
oOo
The house was one of the nice ones just off the main square, the kind that Éponine and Azelma sometimes passed and admired. This specific one, number 05, was just as fine as the others on the street. There was a large front garden with its own well, surrounded by a picket fence, and ivy crawling up the sides of the wall. Éponine hesitantly opened the gate and crossed the garden, sticking to the neat stone path.
She was shivering hard at this point, and Azelma, just behind her as was wont, and shivering also. Along the walk her sister had been completely silent, and when Éponine had tried to talk to her, she'd turned away and flinched, as if expecting to be scolded or struck. It was disturbing to say the least, and Éponine didn't blame her. But Éponine was strong, and she'd stopped fearing her father; turned that fear into hatred. Well-deserved hatred, too, she figured, because she hadn't thought her family remotely unusual until recently. But if there was one thing she knew, it was that Papas didn't strike their little girls.
Now she stood on the stoop, teeth beginning to chatter. Éponine raised her fist and knocked softly on the door, thrice. She heard a dog bark, and there was some shuffling. After about a minute had elapsed, a man of about forty in a good suit answered the door, with short dark hair and blue eyes. He frowned at the two beggar children in front of him, but with puzzlement and not disdain. "Yes? Might I help you?"
"Monsieur," Éponine said, with as much formality as she knew, "we are the daughters of Thénardier, our Papa runs the inn at the edge of the village, but have recently been stricken by poverty. Here is a letter further explaining our situation." From the folds of her flimsy shawl she produced the letter in its envelope. The man, Monsieur Fitzroy, she assumed, took it and pulled the letter from its envelope. He squinted slightly as he read Papa's scrawl, and when he had finished, his blue eyes were awash in sympathy.
"Oh, your poor children," he breathed. "Yes, certainly I'll come. Let me grab my coat and money-purse, and perhaps you'd each like a little piece of bread, too?" Without waiting for an answer, he disappeared inside, emerging some moments later putting on a thick overcoat. He had his money-purse with him, as promised, and two fat slices of white bread, of which he held on each to either sister. The girls, who'd not had anything to eat since yesterday's meagre supper of pea soup, grabbed the bread. Éponine wondered what the note had said. But then she remembered her manners and gave the man a polite thank-you, and for good measure, a little curtsey. She elbowed her sister when she didn't do the same, but Azelma only stared at the man with her big brown eyes and began to eat.
The girls led the man to their inn, where Papa had a hushed conversation with the gentleman in the downstairs parlour. Éponine and Azelma were gruffly instructed by Maman to sit at one of the tables in the lonely eating room and "look pitiful." It wasn't a difficult task at all for Azelma, who already looked pitiful enough with her blank stares and odd, private games. And she was definitely the thinner of the two sisters — paler, too. She sat on a stiff chair playing a game with two wooden spoons, humming to herself. Éponine knew the tune: Au Claire de Lune.
For the elder Thénardier sister, "looking pitiful" was more difficult, because it was an instruction given. She settled for sitting next to her sister and looking downwards sadly. She did hope that would do. Just in the next room, in the parlour, Papa continued his hushed conversation with Monsieur Fitzroy, of which Maman also took part. The Baby, it would seem, was kept away upstairs, ignored as usual.
Éponine and Azelma sat, looking pitiful, for a long time, over an hour. But finally, the rich man left the parlour silently, flashing another sympathetic smile at the two pitiful Thénardier girls as he went. He left the inn, and that was that.
Papa then emerged, and he was grinning. "Money," he said. "We've got money. Now, it's rather late: you girls should both run off to bed." It was around nine o'clock, and wordlessly, Éponine and Azelma did as they were told. They were not offered any supper, but at least Monsieur Fitzroy's bread filled them up nicely. They headed upstairs, scrubbed their faces clean and stripped off their Sunday dresses, changing into fresh nightgowns. The nightgowns were ill-fitting, as were most of their clothes nowadays, but a relief in comparison to the stiff and dirty Sunday clothes. The Baby was already asleep, and now they went to sleep too.
Maman and Papa engaged in another one of their late-night rows again. And they did every night, for the next week and a half. Some of the rows ended in more crashes and stomping, but a couple were resolved with the mysterious bangs and gasps and moans in the bedroom.
During those days, Azelma did not utter a single word, even at school, for her teacher approached Éponine one day and asked her, "Do you know what's gotten into that sister of yours? She's always been a strange one, but she's taken to complete silence, though I've seen her singing and humming to herself in the schoolyard at playtime. It's worrisome behaviour." Éponine had shrugged and mumbled some lie about Azelma being thoroughly upset that their cat had died, but would surely recover from this phase soon, and the teacher withdrew.
One day, when the girls returned home from school, they were bewildered to find a wagon parked outside of the inn, and Maman and Papa were stuffing some of their things in back of it. The Baby was sitting on the stoop, playing with a snowball and hastily bundled up against the January chill. Maman and Papa hadn't made them sell the wooden animals. When he saw his sisters coming up the path, he leapt to his feet and ran to them. "'Ponine! 'Zelma! Maman and Papa say that we are going to Paris! They took down the inn sign!"
"Paris?" Éponine was bewildered. "Why?" He only shrugged, wandered over to the wagon, and began to run around it in circles in a fantasy game of his own, taking hold of a fallen branch and pretending it was a rifle.
Maman was coming out of the inn again carrying a valise full of their clothes, and Éponine ran to her. "Are we truly going to Paris?" she inquired, brow furrowed. "It's what the Baby said."
Her mother dropped the valise in back of the wagon, and now she began to walk back to the inn. "Yes, it's true," she said, without looking at her daughter. "We are moving to Paris. Your father says we can find some proper work there; here we shall never get by. He wrote a letter to your school explaining that we will suddenly be living the village, and sent it by a passing messenger boy. Now hurry up your arse, girl, we don't have all day and if there's anything of yours you wish to take with you, hurry up and fetch it or it'll be left behind."
Éponine ran upstairs to her bedroom. The cots belonging to her and her siblings were still there, with the bedclothes all tucked in, just as she'd left them that morning. She opened her armoire. Some of her better-fitting dresses had been taken already, but most of them had been left there. Éponine left them too, she didn't want to keep any. The only items she gathered were her wooden animals, the only playthings she hadn't been forced to sell. She left the little glass cat and the ivory elephant, however, much as it upset her to do so; she'd like those best. But they'd surely only get broken on the journey. She grabbed, too, the empty tin box in which she'd once kept her pocket money, and stuffed the animals in there.
Downstairs, Azelma was sitting on the stoop with the Baby, holding him to her chest tightly, as if he were her own child and not her younger brother. Éponine deposited the tin box in the wagon, and now Azelma rose and came up to her, the Baby trailing behind her. "Why are we going, 'Ponine?" she asked, uttering her first words in a while. "I don't want to go to Paris."
Despite her initial relief that Azelma was finally speaking, Éponine couldn't help but to heave an impatient sigh. "I don't know, 'Zelma. I don't know everything. Why is it you assume I do?"
"Because you're an entire year older than I."
Maman came up behind them then, giving her youngest daughter a swat upside the head. "Come, if you're all ready to go, then climb in back of the wagon and we shall go." She pointed at Papa, who was already sitting on the little bench up front, and driving it apparently. There was a spot next to him where Maman would surely be sitting, and the children would presumably be riding in back with all their things. Éponine hoisted the Baby up, then climbed up herself before leaning over and helping Azelma. The girls sat on the pile of dresses, where they were cramped but comfortable. The Baby, meanwhile, being only five, found a place for himself wedged between two chairs.
"Where do you imagine we shall live in Paris?" Azelma was full of questions again, and a little back to her usual self. She shifted on the dresses to gain comfort. "Shall we have a beautiful palace? Oh, imagine if we do and we attend all sorts of balls and parties and weddings! People are rich in Paris, after all, aren't they?"
"Not everyone is. There are people who live on the streets, in the slums, and beg for money. They're not rich, and neither are we, remember?"
"But we shan't have to live like that, will we? On the streets?"
"I doubt it. We aren't that poor. I imagine we'll be living in an apartment somewhere. Oh, but we shall surely go to a nice Parisian school, in a grand building with far more children than here in Montfermeil."
"Oh, shall we? Shall we be Parisian schoolgirls, like in books? I'd like that." Azelma seemed elated at the very thought.
They suddenly began to move; Maman had climbed up onto the seat next to Papa. The frozen road was bumpy, but not so much so that the girls were uncomfortable in the back of the wagon. They began to dream of their life in Paris, where they wouldn't be rich but they'd not be in Montfermeil either. There were handsome gentlemen in Paris, too! Perhaps they'd meet some when they got older and marry them and live wonderful lives and have many children.
All this they dreamed of, forgetting the chill as the inn got smaller and smaller. Under a sky that was the grey of newspaper, they drove off to Paris, leaving behind Montfermeil and its shadows.
~ End ~