Combeferre would have preferred Enjolras to stay in bed the next morning but, having awakened at his usual time, Enjolras was eager to be up and about.
"Etienne I feel so much better today, I swear," he promised earnestly. "My throat doesn't even hurt!"
"All right! I give in!" grinned Combeferre. "But if you're lying…"
"I'm not, I promise!" laughed Enjolras, amused by the stern look on Combeferre's face. "I feel well enough to go to class and I really do need to attend. I've missed two lessons, and I doubt Jerôme has taken any notes, so I will have to borrow from Didier or Edouard."
"Hurry up and get dressed then," said Combeferre. "I'll walk with you. I've got a class with Christophe and Claude."
"I'm sorry, Etienne, I…fainted before I could talk to LeClair about his money problems on Wednesday night," Enjolras still squirmed at the thought of having fainted in front of everyone. "I'll have a word with him after the classes."
"Good idea. Coming from one obstinate individual to another, it might just convince him!" grinned Combeferre wickedly, ducking as Enjolras threw a pillow at him. "Do you want to meet us at the Lemblin for lunch?"
"All right," said Enjolras absently, looking for his cravat. He finally found it and tied it, looking back to his normal dignified self. Combeferre finished binding back his soft brown curls and the two gathered their books and left the apartment. They met Courfeyrac and Prouvaire at the first landing.
"Thank God you're well again Julien!" said Courfeyrac fervently. "I really need to borrow your essay notes!"
"Mon Dieu, Jerôme!" exclaimed Combeferre. "Don't tell me you still haven't finished that essay! I thought you were doing it last night."
"Blame Feuilly!" said Courfeyrac at once. "He came round with a book on Grecian myth for Jehan and we started talking and I didn't notice the time!"
"Even though I managed to get two essays done while we were chatting!" said Prouvaire dryly, raising his eyebrows.
"Shut up, Jehan!" grinned Courfeyrac as they made their way out onto the street. "You take your studies more seriously than I do!"
"Jerôme, Bahorel takes his studies more seriously than you do!" Enjolras rolled his eyes.
"Bahorel? Sebastien doesn't go to university, Julien!" said Courfeyrac, baffled.
"My point exactly!" said Enjolras and Prouvaire and Combeferre burst into laughter. Courfeyrac, realising he'd fallen into that trap easily enough, fell silent.
When the four friends passed through the huge arched doorway into the university, they separated; Courfeyrac and Enjolras going to the left, Combeferre to the right, and Prouvaire up the stairs in the hallway.
Enjolras and Courfeyrac found the room already crowded when they arrived at their allotted lecture room. They took their seats and found Didier Ducos and Edouard Chaumier over beside them in an instant.
"Julien, are you feeling better?" grinned Ducos genially – he was a bit of a dunce, but a very cheerful one, so one really couldn't help but like him. "What was the matter with you?"
"Influenza and a fever," said Enjolras with a sigh. "But I've missed two lectures now, and it's getting near to the final examinations. May I borrow your notes please to copy them up?" Chaumier smiled and handed over a few pages, which Enjolras thankfully took.
"You never asked for my notes!" said Courfeyrac indignantly.
"Did you take any?" asked Enjolras disbelievingly and Courfeyrac blushed.
"Well, no…but…"
"I didn't think so. I rest my case!" laughed his blond friend, turning back to their classmates. "Merci, Edouard. I'll return them tomorrow."
"Oh Christ, look who's coming!" groaned Courfeyrac and the others looked round to see Henri Leroux bustling into class.
"Bloody hell!" groaned Ducos comically. "If there's illness going round, why couldn't he have come down with laryngitis?"
"Ah, Julien! You're back!" Leroux began to head for the four grim-faced students in the second row of desks, but before he could get another word spoken, the sour faced Professor Artoire stormed into the room, his black robes billowing around him like the cloud of darkness he always seemed to be under.
"Take your seats!" he barked. "We've no time to waste on idle conversation!"
Leroux hurried off to his own seat and Courfeyrac turned to Enjolras with a grin. "That, my friend," he said "Is what is referred to as 'the nick of time'. I've never been so glad to see Professor Artoire!"
"Sssh! He's coming over!" said Ducos quietly. And indeed, the miserable looking man came over to their desks and stopped in front of Enjolras.
"You've missed two lecture!" he said abruptly. "I trust you know that you will not be exempt from the essay due tomorrow!"
"Yes, Professor," said Enjolras wearily and Courfeyrac smirked.
"And as for you, you've idled away the last two lessons!" snapped Artoire, making Courfeyrac flush. "If I do not have a passable essay from you tomorrow, I will set you an extra dissertation on the etiquette of the French Court Room!"
"Yes, Professor," said Courfeyrac meekly and, as Artoire stormed back to the front of the room, he turned a pair of pleading green eyes to Enjolras.
"All right!" Enjolras smiled. "You can borrow my notes!" And he and Courfeyrac prepared themselves to be bored.
Meanwhile, in the medical corridor, Christophe Joly and Etienne Combeferre were anxiously pondering the whereabouts of Claude LeClair, who had not turned up for their lecture.
"It's not like him!" said Combeferre worriedly. "I mean, he's driven himself to exhaustion before and gone without food, but he's always put his studies first! We have to find out what is going on!"
"I know," said Joly, thoroughly. "Well, after lunch, I'm going round to his rooms. If he is doing without in order to save money, he'll regret it when I get hold of him!"
"And Joly in a fury is not a thing to tangle with!" grinned Combeferre. "Bahorel will testify to that!"
"All right, you…"
"Combeferre! Joly! If you insist on talking during the lesson, I will send you out of the room! Do you really need to be treated like badly behaved schoolboys?"
"No, Professor. Pardon," Combeferre blushed scarlet and looked at the desk, while Joly's cheeks glowed with embarrassment beside him.
"Good! Now if I may continue with the lesson, the inflammation of the liver can lead to…"
To both Combeferre and Joly's utter humiliation, their lecturer kept them back as he dismissed the rest of the class, to further reprimand them for what he deemed was 'childish impertinence'. As a result, they were late in meeting Courfeyrac and Enjolras and found their two friends sitting on the wall outside the university, in the middle of a conversation about families.
"How many brothers and sisters do you have? I thought you were an only child!" Courfeyrac was saying in surprise.
"No. I have three older brothers; René is the eldest. He's a surgeon in Marseille. He is a good man, but I don't see him very often anymore. Then there's Louis; whom I dislike, and Antoine; whom I despise even more. He's arrogant and cold-hearted, so naturally he's Papa's favourite. I have an elder sister called Marie and a younger sister called Christine, whom I adore. I did have another brother, but he died when I was eleven." Enjolras said all this rather quickly and looked at the ground as he finished.
"Your father can't be that bad, surely," said Courfeyrac lightly. "I mean, my father used to give me some ferocious hidings for all the trouble I got into, but he has always always kind and jolly, even when I drove him almost to distraction!"
"Mine's isn't like that," said Enjolras flatly. "I could all pull the colours of the rainbow right out of the clouds and give them to my father; and he'd still say I was a disgrace because they weren't in the right order!"
"Sorry we're late, you two!" said Combeferre as they hurried over. "Are you ready to go?" The two law students slipped off the wall.
"Yes, what kept you?" asked Courfeyrac. Both Joly and Combeferre went scarlet and didn't answer.
"Come along, Jehan will be wondering where we've gone!"Joly beckoned them onwards, changing the subject. "And after lunch, we are going round to see what Claude thinks he's playing at!"
True to their word, the five solemn young students took a detour after lunch and, instead of heading back to the wealthy streets where they lived, traipsed down to the poorer area of town. They soon arrived at the building where Claude LeClair had his pitiful room and Joly knocked on the door.
It was opened by Claude's landlady, who was crying hysterically; a handkerchief clutched in her shaking hand.
"Madame Dupont! Heaven's above, whatever's the matter?" exclaimed Joly, running through the door and supporting her.
"Oh, Monsieur Joly, I'm so glad you came! I…" The poor woman dissolved into a heart-wrenching sobbing, throwing her arms about Joly's slender frame as she almost over balanced in her grief.
"You need to sit down," said Joly gently, seeing that pressing for answers now would not help. "Come along. Jehan, could you fetch her a glass of water please?"
"Oui, of course," Prouvaire dashed through to the kitchen, while Combeferre and Joly guided Madame Dupont to a chair and got her to sit down. Enjolras and Courfeyrac watched on in distress as they calmed her. She swallowed some of the water Jehan brought and clasped her shaking hands together as she tried to regain composure.
"Where's Claude?" asked Combeferre in bewilderment. LeClair was very fond of his kindly landlady and would surely have not have gone out if she was in this kind of state!
At that, Madame Dupont began to sob again, her whole body shaking as her cries shuddered through her. Combeferre felt his blood run cold. "Oh God! Monsieur Combeferre…he…Claude…he…he died this morning!" she wailed and began to cry as if her heart would break.
The colour drained from the five students' faces as they reeled in shock. No one spoke. No one wanted to. No one wanted to make it seem real, because it had to be a nightmare! Joly sank silently into a chair, his knees giving way, while Prouvaire sat in the corner, trembling as if in shock. Courfeyrac opened and closed his mouth over and over again, words failing him. Combeferre still attempted to comfort Madame Dupont, but his vision was blurred with tears. And poor Enjolras just stood there, colourless and stiff, shaking.
"He died? What do you mean?" asked Courfeyrac eventually, his voice getting higher as he spoke. He couldn't bear to think. Combeferre put his arm around him.
"Jerôme, I think it's clear what she means," he said gently, his voice shaking. "Claude…"
"I know!" Courfeyrac's voice broke. "But…I mean…how? What was wrong with him?"
"He was so ill!" Madame Dupont sobbed heartbrokenly. "I wanted to send for a doctor but he wouldn't let me! He said it wasn't serious!"
"May we go through?" asked Combeferre quietly, a tear running down his cheek. They sent for a neighbour to sit with the poor grief-stricken woman and, having left her in the capable hands of the motherly Madame Rogir, they proceeded numbly to Claude's room.
There was a basin of blood-stained vomit lying next to the bed, and in the bed was the body of Claude LeClair, completely stone cold.
The normal healthy flush had drained from his cheeks to be replaced with a ghostly pallor. The mouth that had always been smiling and laughing was open in an almost passive expression; a droplet of blood that had been running from his mouth had dried on his chin. His floppy chestnut hair was in disarray, all over his forehead.
It was horrible to see LeClair, who had been so exuberant and full of life, lying there with not a shred of warmth left. His eyes were the worst – the green orbs that had constantly been alive with good humour, twinkling with laughter and shining with compassion for all his fellow man were now dulled, faded, almost as if they had been the doors to LeClair's spirit, which had been slammed shut far too soon.
The sight of this heartbreaking loss was simply too much for Prouvaire, who burst into tears. Combeferre hastened to put an arm around his friend, crying his own silent tears into Prouvaire's hair, feeling Prouvaire's body shake with the grief that was coursing through him. Courfeyrac had collapsed onto the chair at the foot of the bed, his head resting against the wooden frame as he sobbed silently, all the humour and mischief struck from him with the force of a canon ball.
Joly stood next to the bed, looking at LeClair's face, his own contorted with pain and grief, tears running down his cheeks as fleetingly as drops of rain. He gently drew LeClair's eyelids down, plunging his friend's bright, loving soul into darkness forever, while making his own brain numbly try to swallow the fact that they would never hear Claude LeClair's merry laugh again.
"He was ill?" he asked of no one in particular, his voice thick with tears and dangerously close to cracking. "Why didn't he tell us? Why didn't he come to us for help? God, Claude, why did you let your pride bring you down! We would have done anything to help you. Why did you have to die?"
Joly slumped down onto his knees, hiding his face in his hands as he began to cry as loudly as Prouvaire was. Death was normal – it was a fact of life – but not like this. Claude had only been twenty one; young and happy and friendly to everyone. He had been eager to better himself, eager to do well, willing to do anything to help anyone in need. And everyone had loved him dearly, none more so than the five heartbroken students in the dim, lifeless room. It had cruel to take him so suddenly, so very cruel!
"What are you playing at, God?" sobbed Prouvaire into Combeferre's shoulder. "Why did you want to take him away?"
Combeferre hugged the quiet poet tighter, his own weeping preventing him from speaking words of comfort. Ever tender and caring, even when his own heart felt like it had been broken, he looked up to see how Enjolras was dealing with the grief.
Enjolras was standing about three steps from the foot of the bed, shaking and incredibly pale; so pale, in fact, that his skin was in comparison with poor Claude's cold white face. The expression of grief and sheer anguish on Enjolras's handsome face was enough to send Combeferre back into more sobs. It was painful to see his friend to utterly distraught. Enjolras's face was stony and his eyes were dry. But there was no need for him to shed tears to show his feelings – the pain in his eyes was so intense, it was if someone had struck him to the very depths of his being and physically shattered his heart.
"How could this happen?" wept Courfeyrac, raising his head as he gulped for air. "How could he have hidden this from us? How could we not have noticed?I…what's that?"
"What?" Joly looked up, still sobbing. Courfeyrac picked an envelope up from the foot of the bed. As he lifted it, there was a light clink of something metallic from inside it.
"Look…look at this," he said shakily, as his weeping compatriots gathered around him to read see. "Look at what is says." They all glanced at the writing on the front.
To Les Amis De L'ABC
Joly rubbed his eyes and ran his hands through his smooth dark brown hair. He blinked once more, rubbed the tears from his cheeks and choked on a sob. "Open it," he said.