Chapter Forty-Two

A Profound Lightness

A/N: Cosette deserves better. I can't get over the fact that both Valjean and Marius mean well, but literally never tell her anything. At least with Valjean he's trying to protect her happiness, but with Marius I get the feeling that he just doesn't seem to even consider talking to her about things. Her dialogue in the brick is so spirited and lively, and she survived her childhood with the Thénardiers, so she is far from vapid or fragile. She's just given literally no information about what's going on. It was a symptom of the times, but a bit of an extreme case even then when you compare to characters in other novels that were contemporary.


Éponine was busy scrubbing dishes when there came the sound of a bell ringing, and Basque went up to see to it. He came back down and said that Éponine was wanted by Madame le baron in the salon.

She blew a piece of hair out of her face. "Tell her I'm busy right now."

"Éponine!" Olympie tore the pot from her hands and looked at her reproachfully. "If they ask for you, you must go up at once." She clucked her tongue. "Tell her that you're busy—indeed! I'll finish this up. You're making a dreadful mess, anyhow, splashing sudsy water everywhere."

Éponine frowned, but she patted her hair, rolled her sleeves back down, and went up to the salon. She knew if Cosette wanted her, it was probably to talk. When would she understand that she was a servant, not a friend?

She found Cosette seated in the salon, on a delicately carved settee.

"You needed me, Madame?" Éponine said, as formally as she could.

"Madame! Am I to be Madame?"

"Yes, to your servants, you are."

"But it's too formal, surely, when we were children together. Ah well, I won't argue. Close the door, please."

Éponine closed the door.

Cosette patted the spot next to her on the settee. "Come and sit for a moment, Éponine."

Éponine glanced warily behind her, thinking of all the work that needed to be done. "Madame..."

"If I am mistress of this house, and if you are my servant, then I can demand that you come and sit with me a moment, can't I?" Cosette spoke with the air of someone who always got what they wanted, and yet, somehow, was impossible to dislike.

Éponine sighed, and did as she was told.

Cosette turned herself slightly so that she could face Éponine. In a low voice, she said, "Did my husband tell you about what was in the paper that worried him so?"

Éponine shook her head. "No. Why would he tell me?"

Cosette sighed. "I don't know. I know he had something to say to you, and that's why he wanted me out of the way. I'm not as silly-headed as everyone thinks."

"No one thinks that," Éponine said automatically.

"My papa always did. He would never tell me anything. He always acted so mysteriously, and would never answer my questions. I am not so fragile as they think. You remember."

Yes, Éponine did remember. She remembered that tiny little girl hauling water buckets through the woods in the dark, and slaving around the inn. She never complained, and sometimes cried, but never crumbled. The Lark was anything but fragile.

"Don't misunderstand, I adore Marius, and we're so very happy. But he is determined to never tell me anything the slightest bit unpleasant, as if I'm a child who cannot withstand it. I wish he were more open with me. Even if only about boring business matters! I want to understand."

"He's not treating you like a child, he's treating you like a woman. He wants to protect you, and so did your father. You should be glad," her tone darkened, "having someone who protects you. Even if they take it too far."

But even as she said it, she thought of Erik. She never doubted she was safe with him. Yet, he thought she was very clever. He told her about his business—about the trouble with the managers. He wanted her opinion on his letter. Most men weren't like that, not even decent ones. Maybe especially not decent ones. They either didn't care a bit, like her father, or else they cared to an unhelpful degree, like the men in Cosette's life. Erik always treated her like a whole person. A person who had a mind, and who mattered. In thinking about that, maybe she had been too rash in assuming that he had used her as everyone else did, and should have let him explain. He'd listened to her, but she didn't allow him to speak in return. It made the knot of sadness in her chest swell up to the point of being almost unbearable.

"Well, I'm not glad! I don't need protecting," Cosette insisted.

Éponine fixed her with a very serious glare. "If you don't want to be treated like a child, don't act like one."

Cosette's eyes widened, and she looked a little hurt. "What do you mean?"

Éponine remembered herself, and flushed. "I shouldn't speak like that. I'm only the maid. I should..." she started to get up, but Cosette grabbed her arm and pulled her back.

"Please don't feel like you can't speak your mind with me. I so need a friend."

Looking down at her lap, Éponine spoke in a low, careful voice. "I only mean, the world isn't such a good place, sometimes. It's childish to think that nothing can happen to you. But that's not your fault. You've been sheltered. Be thankful."

Cosette started to ask another question, but Éponine shook her head quickly, biting at the roughened skin around one of her nails.

"All right," Cosette said, her brow furrowed because she still did not understand. "Well, back to what Marius said to you then. What did he want to speak to you about?"

Not sure it was her business to say, but not wanting to lie to Cosette either, she simply said, "He wanted to ask after my family. We used to be neighbours, you know."

Cosette smiled fondly. "He gets lost in his own thoughts sometimes, but he's so kind when he brings his head out of the clouds."

Éponine nodded. "It makes me glad, seeing you both so happy together." She meant it, too.

Cosette beamed. Then, her face changed to something of concern. "Yesterday, when we were in Papa's room, you said something."

Éponine looked at her carefully, unsure where this was going.

"You don't have to tell me, if you don't want to. But you said that a lot has happened in the past month, and if there was someone you could hate for how everything ended up... What did you mean?"

Éponine smiled sadly and shook her head. Then she stood up. "If that's everything, Madame, then I really should go back down and help Nicolette."

Cosette nodded, looking a bit wistful. "Thank you for sitting with me a while. I love Marius and Grandfather dearly, and Papa comes every evening, but it's not the same, talking to them. And," she dropped her voice to a whisper, "Aunt Gillenormand terrifies me!"

Éponine laughed, because she wasn't scared a bit of that old lady, but saw how someone might be. But while she laughed, she felt a deep sadness for Cosette. Even being loved and protected by men who meant well could feel so lonely. It must be quite a powerful loneliness indeed, to make her so grateful even for the company of Éponine Thénardier.

As she left the salon and went back downstairs, she tried not to think about how she hadn't felt a bit lonely in the house on the lake, even with only one person to talk to. That thought made it very difficult not to miss him.

—●—●—●—●—

That evening, Olympie was just starting to get things ready for supper, and she had numerous little tasks for Éponine. Éponine still wasn't sure how to read the older woman, whom she would often catch studying her with narrowed eyes. Whenever she didn't know how to do something, Olympie was exasperated, so she tried figure things out on her own as much as she could. But then, when she did something wrong, it was even worse. Still, Olympie wasn't entirely unkind, and she did ask often whether Éponine needed to rest, which was thoughtful.

At some point, Olympie glanced up at the clock and said, "Oh! Basque! That strange Monsieur Fauchelevent will be here any moment. Éponine, go light a fire. In there. You can manage that, can't you?" She nodded toward a room which was there on the ground floor, and looked out into the street. In it, Éponine found peeling plaster walls, and red tiles on the floor. Clean, but empty save two armchairs and a carpet. There was a single barred window, but it was so near dark that the light which came through was quite pitiful. Éponine crouched to make a fire, and Basque came in with a candle, which he set on the narrow mantlepiece.

"Thank you," she said. "So, Monsieur Fauchelevent—that's Madame le baron's father, isn't it?"

"Well, I understand that he's really her uncle, but he raised her. She calls him father."

"Why see him in such an awful room? It's cold and damp, the kind of place where you don't want to spend a moment."

Basque made a helpless gesture. "His own wish, not hers. He's an odd man—an original, Monsieur Gillenormand says."

Basque left the room, and Éponine got the fire going. She rejoined Olympie in the kitchen for the supper preparations, and Basque went to wait in the courtyard. A short time later, he entered with the guest, showing him into the room Éponine had prepared. She only had a moment to glimpse him, but she'd know him anywhere. M. Fauchelevent. The philanthropist from the Saint-Jacques church. Jean Valjean.

"Should I go up and tell Madame that he's here?" Éponine offered.

Olympie shook her head.

"What?"

"Monsieur le baron says Madame should come down if she wants, but no one is to remind her if she forgets."

Éponine frowned. But if she was inclined to say something about it, she didn't have a chance, because Olympie had something else for her to do.

A short time later, after Basque had gone upstairs to see to something, and it was just the two of them, Olympie said she may as well go up and set the table.

Éponine looked at her fretfully.

"Don't you know how to set a table properly?"

Éponine shook her head. She had been flummoxed by the amount of silverware the night before, and she knew she wouldn't be able to remember what was supposed to go where.

Olympie sighed. "I'll come up with you, and show you." They started for the staircase, and then Olympie stopped. "I can't, I need to stay and watch this so it doesn't burn."

"I'll stay," Éponine said.

Olympie nodded, and took herself upstairs.

Éponine immediately ducked into the room where M. Fauchelevent was. He looked up when she entered, and he still had the same kindly eyes that she remembered so well, from which the goodness of his soul practically shone out. Except, his eyes were very sad, now. Éponine remembered that Cosette had said he had been very strange since the wedding, and had refused to live in the room they prepared for him. Basque said it was his wish that Cosette receive him down here, but Éponine couldn't help but think Marius had something to do with it too, otherwise why would he ask them not to let Cosette know when he arrived? She didn't like any of it. No one should make such a kind man look so sad.

"I haven't seen you here before," he said.

"I'm the new maid." Éponine glanced behind her furtively. "If Nicolette or Basque come down, tell them it was you who called me here. Tell them the fire wanted poked up a bit, all right?"

He looked at her placidly.

"Monsieur Fauchelevent?"

"These days, I am called Monsieur Jean when I am here."

Éponine's words tumbled out quickly, afraid her time would be up before she could say what she'd come to say. "You don't remember me, but I know you. You were good to us. I brought you a letter at Saint-Jacques church one day when it was bitter cold and there was snow on the ground, do you remember? Well, you came back that night. There was a nasty business. I wasn't there, but I knew, and I was meant to be keeping watch outside. I'm—I'm sorry."

Monsieur Jean's eyes lit up with recognition. "You're the eldest Thénardier girl. Is that right?"

Éponine, feeling deeply ashamed, nodded. "Éponine Thénardier."

"You must be nearly the same age as Cos—as Madame Pontmercy." He looked physically pained by his near slip, and Éponine did not understand why. Why distance himself like this, if it pained him so?

But she nodded. "We were born in eighteen-fifteen, both of us. I remember when you came to the inn. I never forgot how kind and good you looked. I...Things got bad, after Cosette left. And sometimes I used to..." She dropped her eyes, feeling ashamed, but somehow deeply compelled to confess all of this to the good man. "I used to sort of hope you would come back, and take me away too."

After a moment, she dared to look up at Monsieur Jean. He was looking at her with such benevolence that it made her eyes water.

She cleared her throat. "We're rotten people. I know. That was such a nasty business, back there, with my father. In the Gorbeau, I mean. I didn't stop it. I didn't even want to stop it—I didn't feel bad about it until later on. Remembering how kind and good you were. But at the time, I just, I don't know. I'm not like Cosette—so good from the inside out. And you, Monsieur. And Monsieur Marius. I—I'm sorry. I hope—I hope I could have been different. But..." She laughed bitterly. "But I'm not. I'm a Thénardier, and that's life. It's all the same to me."

She heard Cosette start to play the piano upstairs, and she saw Monsieur Jean look up with a pained expression. Éponine knew that Cosette had forgotten the time, and was not coming down, and she knew that he knew it as well.

But he looked at her with those sad, good, kind eyes, and he said, "People are not born good or bad, Éponine. And it is never too late to change and lead an honest life. Unless I am mistaken, that is why you are here, doing honest work, and not with your father."

Choking up and unable to speak, Éponine nodded.

Monsieur Jean stepped forward and laid a kindly hand on her shoulder. "My child, if I can ever do anything for you, you will find me at the Rue de l'Homme Armé, number seven." He glanced up again in the direction of Cosette's music, hesitating another moment. Then, he smiled sadly, nodded to himself, bid goodnight to Éponine, and left.

Éponine hurried back into the kitchen, stirring the soup, relieved it hadn't burned. She thought of the scrap of fabric upstairs. There was no way, absolutely no way at all that Jean Valjean had killed and robbed anyone, no matter what her father thought. Whatever he was doing with that body in the sewers, he wasn't disposing of it. What night had her father said it was? The sixth of June. Éponine stared thoughtfully into the soup, and then Olympie came down in a flutter, and distracted her.

—●—●—●—●—

When Éponine brought Marius and Cosette their breakfast the next morning, Cosette saw her and frowned, seeming to remember something.

"Did my father come last night?"

Glancing at Marius, Éponine nodded.

"What! Why did no one tell me? I'd forgotten until just now."

Marius looked at Éponine.

Éponine looked down at her feet. "I think Nicolette didn't want to disturb you. You were playing so beautifully."

"Disturb me! I'm never disturbed to see my father! Even if he is being so very cruel lately. This Monsieur-Jean-and-Madame silliness, in that dreadful little room. I must go and see Nicolette." Shaking her head, Cosette fluttered out of the room.

Éponine wasted no time. She looked at Marius. "Monsieur. You said you're looking for the man who saved your life. Nicolette said you were brought here from the barricades in an awful state. You don't know who got you out? Who brought you here?"

Marius shook his head sadly. "Would that I knew. I would give everything I have for a chance to thank him." Then, he brightened. "Why do you ask? Do you know?"

Éponine shook her head.

"And what about your father? Can you tell me where to find him?"

Éponine shook her head again, and hastily took leave of him. She was about to go back downstairs, but then she paused. She pulled the strip of black fabric out of her pocket, where she had stashed it away that morning. She deliberated a moment before going back into the room she had just quit. She held it out to Marius.

"Does this look familiar to you?"

An odd expression on his face, Marius reached out a hand to take the piece of fabric. Éponine gave it over to him. Without taking his eyes off of it, he pulled a key from his pocket, holding it out. "Go and open up that cabinet, beside the fireplace."

Éponine did as he said, and inside the cabinet she found a filthy black jacket. Out of the substances staining the thing, the prominent splotches of blood were the least disturbing.

"There's a jacket there. Bring it to me," Marius said quietly.

Éponine pulled the jacket out and brought it over to him. His face still had the same odd, dreamlike expression. With shaking hands, he laid the jacket out on his lap, and Éponine saw that there was a jagged strip missing from one of the panels. She was not entirely surprised, and much less so when the black scrap of fabric from her father matched it exactly.

He looked at her questioningly.

"My father, the last time I saw him? I told you he had something bad in mind for you? I made him give this piece of fabric to me. He was planning to come and slander Cosette's father with it, and use it to blackmail you. My father was in the sewers on the sixth of June, and he saw Jea—I mean, Monsieur Fauchelevent—"

Marius eyed her warily. "I know that his name is Jean Valjean. He was a convict. He told me this himself. Cosette does not know."

Éponine nodded, drawing in a shaky breath. So that was why Marius was being so cold to him now? "Well, my father recognised him. And he had a young man on his back, who my father took for dead. He thought he'd murdered and robbed the young man, and was disposing of the body. He took that piece of fabric as evidence. But it's not true, I know he wouldn't have killed anybody. So I thought: the sixth of June. And then I remembered that someone must have brought you here, and you didn't know who it was. But I still wasn't sure—that's your coat then? Well, it was Jean Valjean that saved you, do you see?"

Marius, with liquid eyes and shaking hands, staring down at the jacket in his lap, nodded. Then, he struggled to stand up. Éponine darted forward to help him.

"Monsieur, what are you doing? You're still not—"

He waved her away impatiently, breathing heavily with the effort of standing, looking quite pale, but resolute. Éponine stood back. "Cosette! Cosette!" he shouted.

Cosette came hurrying into the room. "What is it? Why are you up? Éponine, why would you let him get up?" She saw the coat on the couch and wrinkled her nose. "What's that awful old thing?"

"An 'awful old thing?' My angel, that 'awful old thing' is a providential sign! We must get dressed and then go and see your father. Éponine? Go and get his room ready for him. We won't come back without him, even if I have to carry him here myself."

"You remember where it is, Éponine?" Cosette asked, trembling with excitement despite not knowing what was going on.

Éponine nodded, and she smiled as she left and walked down the hallway with a profound feeling of lightness inside of her.

As she passed Mlle. Gillenormand's door, she heard the hushed sound of women's voices. Olympie was in there. And she could have sworn she heard her own name.


A/N: To explain these details from the Brick (a Bricksplanation?): After the wedding Jean Valjean tells Marius that he was a convict and that he's not actually related to Cosette. Marius does not take it very well. Valjean asks to still come and see her once a day, but he does so in the dismal little storage room downstairs. He refuses to call her Cosette anymore, nor let him call her father. He asks to be called Monsieur Jean. As time passes, Marius starts kind of shoving him out little by little. One day, there's no fire, even though the room is so cold they light fires year round. Then the chairs are moved across the room. Then the chairs are gone, etc. Also, Cosette starts to forget and miss the appointment. Valjean is physically pained by all of this, but he is convinced that it's the right thing to do, and it's really upsetting the way it progresses, and one of the most painful things I've ever read!

I really simplified things for this fic, though, with Marius's suspicion and how it was cleared.