Chapter 28 - The Guilty Ones
Javert removed his tophat as he strode into the gaol.
The smell of damp and urine flooded his nostrils as he peered through the gloom for the cell he wanted.
Malloirave trailed close behind him, swinging a lamplight in the gloom to avoid scuffing his boots in the straw on the floor. Javert could tell Malloirave had never been a soldier, his eyes weren't as keen in the dark as his were. He'd not spent moonless nights on patrol, where one foul step could tumble you off the ramparts. Even some twenty years after he'd left the Grand Armeè, Javert felt like the darkness was a second skin.
"This one, Sergeant." He said, abruptly stopping outside a cell door.
Malloirave almost collided into his back, but he halted himself on time and fumbled in his pockets for the keys.
Metal scratched against metal as Malloirave unlocked the cell and pushed the door open. Javert strode forwards into the dismal dark and paused, waiting for his Sergeants swinging lamplight to catch up with him.
When the orange glow illuminated the cell, Javert saw Thénardier's hunched and shivering form curled in the corner.
"You completely ruined the nice little operation your son had going on in the Luxembourg Gardens." Javert said to the hunched figure. "A few subtle pickpockets here and there, swiping a few bits of jewellery. A flock of little sparrows, flitting about, barely even noticeable. A few of them didn't even clock they'd been robbed until they made their way home. For a long while, we couldn't even tell where all this petty thievery was going on, could we Malloirave."
"No, Sir."
Thénardier looked up from his knees and stared at The Inspector with squinting eyes.
"And then you turned up." Javert sighed. "Wanted to be the cuckoo in the nice little nest-egg your son had cultivated."
"And you come along and try to rob 'em blind! And in the full light of day too!" Malloirave interjected.
"I weren't tryin' to rob nobody." Thénardier mumbled.
"We've had several reports from members of the public that you tried luring them away from the Gardens by claiming your wife and your baby daughter were starving to death." Javert said coldly, raising an eyebrow at him. "Next thing they know, three other thugs are on them, beating the living daylights out of them, and they've made off with whatever they could lay their grubby hands on."
Thénardier muttered some colourful expletives under his breath and buried his face in his knees again.
"Perhaps if you hadn't been so ham-fisted about it, you could've gotten away with it for much longer. But you played straight into our hands." Malloirave said, glancing at Javert with a smug smile.
"I dunno where you lot get off." Thénardier grumbled bitterly. "Goin' after little people like me, instead of the real criminals out there."
"I'm fairly confident that I have a real criminal in this cell with me too." Javert muttered sardonically.
"Well, with me off the streets, you know how that's gonna affect you, don't you, Inspector?"
Thénardier gave Javert a hard stare and his spine stiffened. There was silence for a while as the thinly-veiled threat sat in the air between them. Javert waited for Malloirave to say something, or question him in some way, but nothing came. He inclined his head towards Malloirave and took the lamp from his hand.
"You may return to the barracks now, Sergeant." He said coolly.
Malloirave hesitated for a second, the confused frown on his face harsh in the light of the lamp. But after a moment, he bowed to his commanding officer and left the cell without a word of protest.
He stared at Thenardier's abysmal face for a long while. Truly, he wanted to beat the man black and blue for what he'd done to Grace. Repay back every cut and bruise he'd seen on her body tenfold. The red mist of rage began to cloud his vision once again as he recalled her tears, when she'd ran into him on the Pont au Double, after her attack. How Grace had wept and winced in his arms because they'd dared to lay hands on her. How they'd pitted four of them against her at once…
It took all of his restraint to keep his fists firmly by his sides, but if he pummelled Thénardier into mush, he might never retrieve the item that they'd stolen from Grace. The item he'd promised Grace he'd get back for her.
"You are fortunate, Thenardier, that our existing relationship entitles you to…certain benefits." Javert said, trying to unclench his jaw.
"Benefits, sir?"
"Believe me when I say that I would have no qualms at all about letting you rot in this cell for your attempted robberies in the Luxembourg Gardens. But…"
"But what, sir?"
"But you have something I want."
Thénardier chuckled to himself. "I believe I've got something you'll want too, sir."
Javert frowned. Clearly they were talking about two separate things. Thénardier had no way of knowing that he was after Grace's lost item, so what on earth was Thenardier referring to?
He placed the lamp down on the floor and crossed his arms over his chest. His intrigue was piqued.
"I'm listening, Thénardier."
"Arrestin' me today, that was small-fry, Inspector." Thénardier said, flashing him a row of his yellowing teeth. "There was someone else in those gardens that makes me look like the blessed Saint Denis! And he slipped on past, right under your nose!"
"For God's sake, who, man?"
"Now, I'll admit, yes I had 'im in mine and my wife's presence to… relieve 'im of a little bit of cash. I thought he was just another one of those toffs that go walking that way all the time. But I knew that face…" Thénardier growled, his expression turning vicious in the blink of an eye. "I knew that bastard. Even after all these years."
"Am I meant to just guess, Thénardier?" Javert asked coldly.
"He stole my daughter, Inspector! Left with her in the middle of the night, when we still had the Inn back in Montfermeil! I even gave chase to 'im, I did! But he took my pistol from me and I had to fight for my very life, Monsieur!"
Javert blinked and took a second to digest the barrage of information Thenardier had just given him.
"Your daughter? The dark haired girl I've seen with-"
He stopped himself abruptly. With Grace, he'd been about to say. But he swallowed it down and took in a deep breath.
"The girl I've seen wandering the streets at night?"
"Huh? No, not our Eponine. This girl, she weren't really my daughter. We just looked after 'er for 'er mother. But we treated her like she was one of our own. Shared each loaf of bread and each bone with 'er, we did!"
"And what was her name?"
"C…Colette?" Thenardier said unsurely. "No, Cosette! Cosette, that was it."
Something stirred inside Javert's mind. Like a giant turning over in its sleep. He recalled that name, for some strange reason that he couldn't quite place. It made him feel uncomfortable and on edge. As if it poked at something he was deeply embarrassed about.
"So, this man…" he continued, mentally putting the name to one side for the time being. "...in the Gardens today. He was the same man who took Cosette from you?"
"It was, Monsieur!" Thenardier hollered, his coarse voice echoing around the stone cell. "Must have been about twelve years ago now, but I never forget a face!"
"His name, man!" Javert sighed impatiently. "What is his blasted name?!"
"Jean Valjean."
Never so violently and forcefully had the past rushed up to meet him.
It crashed into him like the slam of a fist in his face.
Not an ambling daydream when his mind went wandering or a soporific nightmare when he was on the edges of sleep.
But, suddenly, there he was, standing on the dockyards of Toulon again.
Shoulders squared against the spitting rain coming in from off the coast and ears ringing from the savage crashing of the ships' chains.
The chain gangs in the drydock beneath him heaved in rhythmic grunts. He could hear the foremen barking their same, repetitive instructions at them.
"One, two, three, haul!"
A groan went up.
"One, two, three, haul!"
Another groan.
"One, two, three, haul!"
Groan.
Pulling the war galleys into the drydocks was backbreaking. Hauling the massive great structures out of the water and over the cut stone took hours. Days, sometimes. It was an eye-popping kind of exhaustion. Men would vomit up their food and scream out in pain as hernias erupted from their stomachs.
It was the worst kind of fatigue that the prison had to offer. Repetitive, slow, painful, gruelling…
"One, two, three, haul!"
"One, two, three, haul!"
"One, two, three, haul!"
The ceaseless, unchanging commands of the foremen ate away at the ear. Chipping away at his sanity every time it sounded out. A drumbeat. A verbal thrashing. It grated away at Javert's nerves. And all he had to do was stand there and listen to it. For the prisoners, he imagined it was torturous.
By the time the ship was docked and the pulling for today was done, many of them were so weak that they struggled to hold their arms up. Their trembling muscles wouldn't even allow them to raise their hands to accept their daily ration of food. But as Javert approached a chain gang of red-clad prisoners, holding a fistful of paperwork out towards the man he sought, even after that punishing day of hauling, the man still managed to reach up and take it from him.
"Wh- what is this?" Prisoner 24601 asked him.
"Your letters of dismissal." He replied.
A glassy and vacant look passed over the man's eyes. For a moment, Javert thought that the man had not understood him.
"Do you know the meaning of these papers, 24601?"
"It…it means…" the Prisoner said tightly, swallowing hard as his hands began to shake. "It means I'm finally free."
"Free?" Javert scoffed. "You will never be 'free' of your crimes 24601. You shall always be a thief."
The Prisoner stayed silent, staring at the papers in his hands, as Javert unlocked the irons that bound his wrists and feet. The other men of the chain gang looked upon him with searing jealousy as he was freed. Their glares of hatred and pain scorching his skin as they watched the irons fall from him. No one offered him a word of congratulations. No one ever did.
Javert forcefully took the man by the arm and began hauling him away from the drydock as if he was still an inmate. There were processes that needed to be followed, procedures that needed to take place, before the man could be seen as anything other.
Still, Prisoner 24601 seemed to have no reaction to his release. Javert had seen men cry, fall to the ground, sob up at the empty sky in thanks to God. He was one of the lucky ones. A man who had made it to the end of his incarceration. But during their entire walk up to the prison offices, 24601 held that same glassy, vacant expression he'd had initially.
"Can you read the instructions you have been given?" Javert asked when he noticed the man's expressionless eyes were still fixed on the paper in his hands.
"Mostly." He responded flatly. "I…My sister and I… we were only taught to read a few lines here and there-"
"You are to begin a period of parole." Javert cut in swiftly. "Every week, you must present yourself to the Parole Officer in Pontarlier so your movements and activities can be tracked."
He waited for the prisoner to say something, but no questions or queries came, so he pressed on.
"If you miss your appointment with the Parole Officer, then you will be found in violation of the terms of your release and will be re-arrested. You are not permitted to travel outside of the district. And you must present your yellow ticket-of-leave to any employers or landlords you encounter."
"Ticket-of-leave?"
Javert hauled the man inside a small managerial building. He relinquished his iron grip on the man's arm and began rummaging in a large oak cabinet for a few moments. With a grunt of satisfaction, he finally withdrew his hand and thrust another scrap of paper at Prisoner 24601. It was the colour of strong mustard and stamped with dark, splotchy ink.
"This document identifies you as a criminal." Javert stated, pointing a rigid finger into the yellow paper. "It is designed to protect those who find themselves in close proximity to you, so they are aware of the potential danger you pose to their safety."
"D-danger?" Prisoner 24601 stuttered. "I stole a loaf of bread!"
"The circumstances of your thievery are irreleva-"
"My sister and her child were starving!"
"And what happens when every hungry mouth in France decides to steal a loaf of bread from the baker, hmm?" Javert said, his voice cold and condescending. "Unless you can understand the meaning of our laws, and the consequences that must be enforced for breaking them-"
"Nineteen years of hell on earth…given to a starving man as the price to pay for a single loaf of bread…The years… The waste…What was the meaning of all that?!" 24601 spat viciously. It was the first time Javert had seen any real emotion on his face since he'd been given the news of his release.
"Your sentence was extended because you refused to accept the terms of your incarceration. Three different escape attempts, if I'm right?"
"That's not-"
"The last of which I was present for, if I remember correctly!" Javert cut in swiftly. "That day of the hulk fires? When you tried to slip your irons and make use of the chaos?"
Prisoner 24601 went silent. His jaw clamped shut in a tense knot. He could see that the man wanted to argue with him, but thought better of it.
"So, when does this period of parole end?" 24601 grumbled miserably.
"It doesn't."
"It doesn't?!"
"Why, of course not!" Javert scoffed. "Could you imagine the outrage good people would feel to learn that a man they'd taken into their midst was harbouring a secret sin of this magnitude?!"
"B-but.." Prisoner 24601 stammered. "Who will want to employ me with this proof of my guilt in their hand?" he asked, flapping the yellow passport in Javert's face.
"You committed the crime, therefore you must be prepared to live by the consequences of your own actions." he shrugged back at him.
"I shall be starving again in a month's time!"
"That sounds like an issue that you are responsible for, not us."
Prisoner 24601 scoffed in disbelief. "Then you are the guilty ones. Not me."
Javert straightened his back, his skin erupting into goosebumps as he sensed the menace and violence in the man's eyes. He watched as 24601's hands clamped menacingly around the yellow ticket-of-leave, crumpling its edges. He remembered his strength. How those hands could snap the bones in his neck if he wanted to. Perhaps it would have been prudent to have another Chourmes present for this dismissal.
"Your Parole Officer will expect to see that at your meetings, 24601." Javert stated coolly, trying to sound calmer and more authoritative than he felt. "So, if I were you, I wouldn't destroy it."
"My name is not '24601'." the man growled, his voice little more than a snarl. "You took my name from me when I entered this place. But I am not this number you tattooed across my chest!"
Javert paused, looking down his arrow nose at the face of the prisoner. He had a feeling gurgling away inside him. An 'intuition', old Froid had called it. Something told him to mark this man's face. Commit it to memory. Something was screaming at him to pay attention.
"Do you know mine?" He asked the man
Javert wasn't quite sure why he'd asked him that question. But the 'intuition' told him that he needed to stamp himself on this man. He needed him to know who he was.
Prisoner 24601's eyes widened a little in surprise. "No."
"I am Javert." he said sternly, refusing to take his eyes off him.
A beat of silence passed between them
"I won't forget it." the prisoner said, and Javert could tell that perhaps he sensed the same weightiness to this interaction too.
"And yours?" Javert asked after another stretch of tense silence.
"My name is Jean Valjean."
Javert's world imploded.
He felt like the floor dropped out from underneath him and he was falling.
Falling, falling, falling….
Those three syllables ricocheted around his mind like a ceaseless, pounding echo. Repeating again and again, forever and ever.
Jean Valjean.
He felt an alertness seize him. Like a bloodhound who'd caught a whiff of the hunt after believing he'd lost the scent forever. Each of his muscles grew taut and tense with it. And there was suddenly not enough space in his mouth for his tongue…
Jean Valjean
That name awoke a slumbering goliath inside him. An obsession that he had laid dormant for many years. Reignited a fire that made his heart burn with hatred.
This feeling, this obsession, he knew well. It had filled up every little part of him, all of his cracks and crevices, for years. Animating him like some horrific revenant, powered only by a mania and fixation on that name.
Jean Valjean.
His mind emptied of everything else. He didn't have a name of his own, didn't have an identity of his own. No memories or wants or needs. And suddenly, there wasn't anything of him without Jean Valjean.
"You're sure? You're sure it was him?" Javert asked, his voice a low rumble.
"Cut my own hand off if I'm wrong, Monsieur!" Thénardier cried dramatically. "And you know how the guilty act around men of the Law like yourself. As soon as you and your men turned up, he went scarpering, didn't he?"
"Hmm." Javert grumbled. "Let him run from me. I'll run him off his feet."
There was silence for a long while as Javert ground his teeth together with determination. Years of torment and embarrassment bubbled up inside him. The man he'd let go. The criminal who'd fooled him. The bane of his life…
Thénardier cleared his throat awkwardly, and Javert blinked as he suddenly crashed back down into the dark holding cells.
"Do you know where he can be found?" Javert asked the vagabond.
"No, Sir. Not a clue." Thénardier shrugged.
Javert grunted in frustration and ground his teeth harder.
"But…I'm sure I could set my associates to the task of… locatin' him, for the right price?"
"The right price?"
"Well Sir, in the absence of a victim and in exchange for the information I've imparted to you, maybe you could see your way to letting me out of this place without charge?"
Javert grimaced and crossed his hands over his broad chest. "Too many questions. You've been arrested. Your incarceration has been logged. Perhaps if Malloirave hadn't accompanied me here, I could have released you without anyone potentially querying what happened to you…"
Thénardier sighed insincerely. "Well, that's a real shame, Sir. I would hate for Jean Valjean to get wind that someone's after 'im…" He paused, fixing The Inspector with his sharp, discomfiting eyes. "…and go scarpering off before the Law can catch up with 'im."
Javert sighed and rolled his eyes towards the ceiling. Thenardier was tenacious if nothing else. But so was he. And Javert reminded himself that he was the one who held the position of power in this situation.
And then, somehow, through the mist of his all-consuming obsession, a memory broke through the haze.
Grace…
The fact that he'd almost completely forgotten about her frightened him. One word from a ghost of his past and he had almost utterly lost his present. So easily had he slipped back into being the man he had once been before he'd known her. Untethered to anything, apart from his service to the Law. And today, in the Luxembourg Gardens, they'd both been there. Valjean and Grace. His past and his present, about to collide together spectacularly. The thought made him feel queasy.
Somehow he pieced his mind back together just enough to recall the promise he'd made to Grace. It was difficult to drop his thoughts about Valjean, even for a moment, but he made himself do it, like trying to wrestle away a butcher's bone from a hungry dog.
"If I were to let you loose of this place, I'd need just one more thing from you, Thenardier." he said slowly.
"And what's that, Sir?"
"I believe you have something that I want." he said coolly. "Something that you took."
"Took, Sir?" Thenardier asked incredulously. His voice went high and squeaky as he tried to feign ignorance.
"Spare me your put-on display of outrage, Thenardier." he grumbled. "I know what you and your gang did to Romily Degas last night."
Thenardier's lips curled into a snarl. "So that prickless gobshite snitched on us, did he? He shoulda known better than to go running to the Prefecture, cause next time it won't be my boot that I put into his belly."
Anger flared up inside Javert again. The vagabond had no idea just how much restraint Javert had employed not to beat him over his head for the first time he'd shown Grace violence. But now Thenardier had the balls to threaten Grace again, right in front of him, he felt that restraint slowly slipping away from him.
"You will not lay a hand on Degas ever again. If you or any of your cronies so much as get within thirty paces of him, I'll make sure that the river dredgers drag your cold, wet corpse out of the Seine the following morning. Do you understand me?"
Javert's voice had been so menacingly frigid and calm that it made Thenardier sit up a little straighter. He knew that Javert meant every word he'd just spoken. Thenardier blinked a few times in shock, nodding in dumbfounded silence, and Javert relished in the real shiver of fear that he saw pass over the man's face.
"I understand you." Thenardier said thickly.
"Good." Javert nodded.
"I…didn't realise the eunuch was a…close friend of yours, Inspector." Thenardier said, giving the policeman a long, probing glance.
"That is no business of yours, Thenardier." he replied dismissively, although he felt foolish.
Yes, the threat had given him a warm sense of satisfaction, but he'd shown his whole hand to Thenardier in betraying his ties to Grace. To 'Degas'. It was now a possible weakness that could be exploited. And if Javert knew anything about men like Thenardier, they'd try to exploit it sooner rather than later.
"So, as I said, you took something from Degas last night." Javert continued swiftly, before Thenardier could learn anything more about Grace. "And if you wish for me to fiddle things around with the gaoler's log-book, make the charges against you miraculously go away…then I suggest that you return it."
Thenardier pouted like a scalded child and glanced down at the floor. "The prickless gobshite didn't have anythin' on him worth stealing anyway. A few francs that we split between the four of us. Wasn't even enough for us to get a bottle of cider each." he grumbled, hacking up a glob of phlegm and spitting it into the corner of the cell. "And I don't even know what this fucking thing is meant to be."
From out of one of his jacket pockets, Thenardier pulled out a dark, thin square of glass. In the glow of the lamplight, Javert had to squint at it, but he recognised it from Grace's description almost immediately. Despite himself, Javert allowed himself a small smile of triumph.
He held out the palm of his hand to Thenardier without uttering even the slightest word of encouragement. Thenardier gave him one more sour look before he dropped it into The Inspector's waiting palm.
"Much obliged." Javert said succinctly, turning on his heels and picking up the lamp in his other hand. "I'll see to it that the gaoler sets you loose by dawn."
"Dawn?!" Thenardier squeaked "But it can't have been midday when I was arrested, Inspector!"
"If you aren't satisfied with the timings of your release, Thenardier, then perhaps we can revisit those charges of attempted assault and theft…"
He turned and paused, waiting for Thenardier to say something in retort. But when all he heard was the low mutterings of Thenardier's grumbled curses, he grinned one final time and left the man to rot, for just a little bit longer, in the cell.
"Perhaps he'll get bored of her after a few months or so." Eponine shrugged, her face miserable as they walked the boulevard. "That's what happens with Courfeyrac and Bahorel's girls. They're all sunshine and sing-songs and love-letters and poetry for a handful of weeks, and then it just…goes away."
"Yes, but Courfeyrac and Bahorel are pigs." Grace said, beside her. "They think with what's in their trousers. Marius isn't like that."
"No, he's not…" she muttered.
Eponine stared up into the boughs of the trees that lined the street. There were starlings nesting in the branches. Singing prettily against the pink sky. She sighed heavily, and Grace could feel the pain in each breath she took.
Her mood had been black and heavy ever since that chance meeting in the Luxembourg Gardens yesterday. Grace was glad that Eponine hadn't been around to hear the majority of the stuff Marius had been saying that night. Talking about his soul on fire, a world devoid of light without her near, the burst of light that came when he first saw her... It would have killed her to hear it.
"I'm sorry, 'Ponine." Grace said, gently taking her hand and squeezing tight.
"Sorry? Why are you sorry?"
"Because I know what it's like."
Eponine scoffed and tried to draw her hand away but Grace held on firmly.
"I do. There was a man I loved, back home in Oxford, who fell in love with someone else. It's like… a gut punch straight to the heart. Like a part of you is always writhing in agony."
Eponine gave her a sidelong glance, and Grace made a point not to stare at the tears now streaming down her face. If she saw her sadness, Grace would start crying too, and difficult as it was for her to talk about David, she'd given him enough tears already.
"A part of me wanted to just whither away and rot. And I did for a while. I let everything decay around me because seeing him happy with someone else… I didn't want to die, but I was okay with letting everything else just disintegrate around me."
"When did it stop? The pain." Eponine asked thickly.
"It didn't. I think I still loved him when I came here. Even though I hated him for it too."
"I don't hate him. Marius. I could never hate him." she said quickly, her bottom lip quivering. "Because he was never mine to lose."
"It's easier to hate them. It hurts less."
"I know, but I just can't…"
Grace couldn't think of what to say next. Eponine held the silence too, merely squeezing her hand back as she furiously blinked away the tears in her eyes.
"Anyway, you fell in love again. I couldn't love anybody else but him." Eponine said, wiping her face with the back of her sleeve.
Grace felt her stomach plunge inside her. "Wh…What?!" she stammered. "Who said anything about me being in love?!"
Her heart was suddenly beating at double the rate it had been before. Her palms felt sweaty.
"But The Inspector…" Eponine frowned at her. "The way you speak about him…"
"Th-that doesn't mean…"
"Really? You're going to try and deny it after what you said about him on the Elephant? In the Gardens?"
She suddenly felt like she was standing on a glass floor. Like she was expecting something dreadful and deadly to happen, but it hadn't yet. Thrown in to that heady mix was the feeling of complete, naked vulnerability and she desperately wanted to hide herself. Like she was exposing a plethora of barely-healed scars to the world.
"I don't love him! Don't be fucking ridiculous..!" she breathed shakily.
"Oh, so you're just like Courfeyrac and Bahorel?" Eponine asked derisively. "Gonna get bored of him in a few months time?"
"No, it's not like that!" Grace exclaimed, startling some of the starlings in the trees into flight. "Christ, it's bad enough for me just to have…feelings for him. I can't love him!"
"Are you afraid? That what happened last time with that man in Oxford will happen again?"
"No!"
Yes. Her mind screamed at her.
Grace pushed that thought far away from her. Just dancing around it frightened her. And she couldn't. She couldn't entertain the idea even for a moment because when she was scared, she was weak.
And she couldn't be weak. Not here. Not now. Not when that storm she sensed was this close.
She couldn't afford to start all over again. Last time had been difficult enough, and it had taken her being sent here by the Story Teller to propel her into moving forwards.
"Look, I don't want to talk about it. Leave it alone." she said tersely.
Eponine visibly flinched at the harsh edge that had lined her voice. She never sounded like that. Sarky, confrontational, argumentative. But never mean.
Grace instantly felt bad for snapping at her friend, and she swallowed hard. "Are we close yet?"
Eponine gave her friend a long, hard look and sighed. She stopped in her tracks and pointed at a house down the boulevard.
"I think it's number fifty-five." she said flatly. "There's a housekeeper called Toussaint. Nasty old cow. She sometimes buys fish from the markets in Montmartre. Says she works for an old man and his pretty young daughter. It might be them, might not be."
"So why did you bring me?" Grace asked confusedly. "Why not just go up to the gate and ask yourself?"
"Because she bloody hates me." Eponine scowled. "Caught me trying to steal her basket of fish once, and she beat me with her umbrella. If I turned up asking for her master and mistress, she'd probably throw hot ashes in my face."
"Oh, I see…" Grace said, glancing at the gate of the fine house.
There was ivy curling up the ironwork. Lilacs had begun to bloom in the gentle warmth of the coming spring. The house beyond looked large and opulent. More than what Grace had been expecting for a man who used to tend the gardens in the Provins convent…
"Also, if it is them, I don't think Cosette will want to see me." Eponine added quietly.
Grace turned to face her with her eyebrows knotted together in sympathy. "She can't blame you for what happened when you were children, Eponine."
Grace's hunch had turned out to be correct. She'd remembered correctly, all those months ago when her and Cosette had talked in the rose garden, that Eponine's name had been mentioned. Their walk over to the Rue Plumet had given Eponine the time to fill Grace in on their shared past: The Inn in Montfermeil, the cruelty the Thenardier's had shown a little, abandoned girl, the day a man had turned up to take Cosette away…
"Me and Azelma used to tease her. Throw rocks at her and tell her that her mother wasn't coming back for her." Eponine said shamefully, casting her eyes to the floor. "God, look what's become of her and me now..."
"Cosette is kind. I'm sure if you just-"
"No. it's better this way." Eponine interrupted swiftly. "It's probably better for me to try and hate her, if I can't hate Marius, anyway."
Grace opened her mouth to argue back, but Eponine merely turned on her heels and walked back the way she came.
"So, you're just gonna go?" Grace called nervously after her. "Without finding out if you're right about the house?"
"If I'm right, you can tell me back at the cafe tonight." Eponine called back over her shoulder. "And then… I'll try and muster up the strength to tell Marius."
Grace watched her go with a heavy feeling in her chest.
When she was completely out of sight, she turned back towards the lilac house. Her feet were heavy as she approached the iron gate and try as she might, she couldn't force herself to stand still after she rang the bell.
It took a while for an elderly lady, bustling out with an apron tied so tightly around her midriff that Grace wondered how she was breathing, to come to the gate.
"C-Can I help you, Monsieur?" she asked, peering through the bars.
"I…uh…I was told that this might be the right house." Grace began unsurely.
"The r-right house for whom, Monsieur?"
Her voice had a stutter, judging by the way she tripped over certain words, but Grace noted the prim firmness with which the woman held her lips. Like she was trying to check the stutter into place behind her teeth. The lady's eyes were soft, but her back was straight and her brow firm. She didn't look like the type to beat people in the marketplace with an umbrella, but there might have been a hint of a motherly lioness's kind of strength that Grace sensed about her.
"I've never known the M-master of this house to h-have visitors, you see."
"Well, I think I have the right place." Grace said hopefully. "Cosette Fauchelevent? Does she live here?"
The elderly woman blinked twice at her and Grace thought she was about to get a fistful of ash in her face and a command to bugger off, like Eponine had warned. But then the housekeeper reached for the lock on the gate, and it swung open before her.
"You b-better come in."
Grace breathed a sigh of relief and slipped in past the slightly ajar iron bars. Toussaint closed and relocked it hastily behind her before ushering Grace up the stairs and into the grand house.
It was not as fanciful as the Chateau in Provins, but Grace nevertheless felt awkward and rather dirty when standing in the midst of the impeccably polished chequered floor.
"Wait here, if you w-wouldn't mind, Monsieur." the housekeeper said.
Grace nodded and Toussaint went bustling up the stairs and out of sight. As she waited, she looked around the foyer, nervously taking off her boy's cap and fiddling with the rim. An old grandfather clock ticked loudly in one corner of the room. A murky oil painting of a ship at sea hung on one of the walls. And on one of the conference tables, opposite the incessantly ticking clock, there was a vase of pink roses…
And Grace smiled to herself, knowing she had the right house.
"Grace!" Cosette shrieked from the top of the landing.
Before she even had time to reply, Cosette had swooped down the stairs and flung her arms around her in another crushing hug.
"When Papa whisked us away so suddenly in the Gardens, I thought I might never get the chance to see you again!"
Grace laughed and hugged Cosette back, all of her nervous tension disappearing.
"How did you find us? Papa never has guests. And he keeps me in this big house, behind those big garden walls, and nobody knows that I even exist here!"
"Oh, I have some very clever friends that know everything that goes on in this city." Grace replied with a knowing smile.
Cosette turned back to the housemaid, still loitering suspiciously at the top of the stairs.
"It's alright, Toussaint. This is Grace. She's an old friend of mine and Papa's. We knew each other before we came here to Paris."
Toussaint didn't say anything, merely keeping her back straight and her lips pursed together in that extremely controlled way.
"Toussaint was just making me some tea. Would you like some?"
"Oh god, I haven't had a good cup of tea in months…" Grace groaned.
"Then you must have some! And some cakes too, if you would, Toussaint."
"Oh no, please don't trouble yourself…" Grace said modestly.
"Nonsense! You look like you've not eaten a decent meal in forever, my dear Grace. I didn't want to say anything in the Gardens, but gosh, you do look thin."
"Cosette! T-That is not kind…" Toussaint cut in sternly.
"No, it's true…" Grace mumbled wearily. "I'm not quite the 'lady' that I once used to be."
"Not a lady at all, judging by your clothes!" Cosette laughed, pulling at Grace's coat. "When Toussaint said that a young man in a flat cap was at the door asking for me, I thought… Well, I remembered your dress from the Luxembourg Gardens, and I hoped it was you."
Grace scoffed and rolled her eyes. "Yes, I said I'd tell you about these clothes, didn't I."
"Oh, you must! I am dying to hear all about it." Cosette said, stopping to wrinkle her nose a little. "Although, I hope you won't mind me saying, Grace, it looks like you've had them on for months."
Grace looked down at herself and blushed. There was mud on her boots, stains from God only knew what all over her shirt, she couldn't remember the last time she'd washed her hair… Grace was, quite frankly, filthy. She probably looked atrocious in Cosette's eyes. The smell of Montmartre was all over her.
"Would you like a bath before your tea?" Cosette asked. "You could draw one, couldn't you Toussaint?"
"Of course, Mademoiselle." the housekeeper replied with a curt nod.
"A bath?" Grace sighed. "Oh my God, I'd love one…"