Cosette Fauchelevent (
lark_in_flight) wrote2016-01-13 10:45 pm
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Entry tags:
Fantine & Cosette
[Just before.]
Cosette knocks on her mother's door.
If there's no answer, she'll let herself in. But perhaps her mother is in already.
Cosette knocks on her mother's door.
If there's no answer, she'll let herself in. But perhaps her mother is in already.
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She breaks off. Cosette has forgotten the Thénardiers, so M. Madeleine has said, and Fantine won't force her to remember. "If Javert told you of M. Madeline's past, it was out of malice, to hurt him. It must have been. Some might share the truth out of kindness, or simple honesty. Not Javert. He was trying to hurt your father by revealing his secrets as he lay ill."
She laughs, suddenly. "And what a fool he is. Surely you can't hate your father for stealing bread! How can that be a crime? Those who set the bread prices too high, the police should send them to prison!"
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So why does it make her shiver now? Why does it seem as if the shadows of the room have grown darker, and as if something terrible is lurking beyond?
Something terrible is beyond. Her father nearly died. What could be more fearsome than that? Her nerves are unsettled. It must be that. They are unsettled, she knows that; she feels as if she can't bear another horrible revelation, and at the same time she can't bear any more horrible secrets kept from her; she feels as if she might scream, or fall to pieces, or faint if this awful day keeps going as it has been. The quiet morning she had seems years away from the afternoon's nightmare.
Her mother is continuing on, tossing wild accusations at M. Javert, laughing and speaking of political opinions. "Who -- who are those people? The Thénardiers."
It's only a name. It shouldn't feel like a stone falling from her mouth.
(She was already pale, with tears and with stress. She doesn't know that her face has paled further.)
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"Oh," she wails, "I don't know what I want any more!"
...Yeah so something hot to drink, and possibly also some food and quiet, is maybe not a bad plan.
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"Here you are." Fantine draws up the little nightstand and puts the hot chocolate on top of it before Cosette. "Now just drink it, and then you can ask me or tell me anything you like, hmm?"
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Then her face crumples again, though she's out of tears for the moment, and she slumps over sideways to curl up on her mother's bed like a child, and press her face miserably to her knees.
She doesn't know how many minutes pass. But then there are steps in the hallway, and a hand on the latch; she sits up hastily, and finds a watery attempt at a smile for her mother.
Obediently she takes the hot chocolate, and sips at it. "You're so very good to me, Mother," she murmurs.
The hot chocolate is rich and sweet, and it slides down her throat like ambrosia. She hadn't realized she was thirsty or hungry at all.
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To Cosette, she says, "That's right, darling. Drink up, and have a sandwich, too."
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Her mother has never shown any particular inclination to deprive herself of small pleasures. But it's habitual, and it would be even if Cosette were calm and thinking clearly.
"Oh!" she cries, impulsively, when she's finished half a sandwich and most of her hot cocoa. "You are so very good. You know that, don't you, Mother? You must know it."
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"You are -- I don't care about anything else, I don't care! If anyone has ever said a bad thing about you it's only because they didn't know you and how very good you are. You are, you're so kind and warm and loving and good, I know God must be smiling down on you, Mother. I'm very sure of it. You mustn't ever think otherwise. That would be contradicting your little Cosette, so you mustn't."
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"Oh, Mother!" She has no more tears, but the word is nearly a sob all the same.
"I love you so. I'm so glad God sent you here to me. I'm so glad. It's a blessing, I thank Him on my knees for you. I do love you."
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Then she pulls back a little, and dashes at her eyes. "Oh -- oh, I'm all a muddle! I haven't even told you the other good news. My darling Marius is here."
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She wants, very fiercely, to never at all give any impression of being ashamed of her mother. And yet she can't quite bear to navigate this delicate terrain too, not after everything else that's happened today.
"My poor Marius, I've hardly explained a thing to him. And it was M. le docteur Joly who helped Father -- do you know him? -- he's one of my Marius's friends, I mean he was. He still is! But, well, he's at Milliways after -- and then it's Milliways. And everything with Father was so awful."
"I want you to meet him, I do, as soon as possible. I'd go fetch him right now except for that! You'll see how wonderful he is. But it's only that I want him to have a little time to, to understand how things are here."
Her voice trails off a little uncertainly, and she studies her mother's face anxiously. She doesn't want to give offense. If she has -- if she's made her mother sad, on top of everything else -- then she'll leap up and go fetch Marius right now, no matter how exhausting it feels. She couldn't bear to make her mother sad too.
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And she doesn't want to make any problems for Cosette. "Of course, darling." She smiles. "Whenever you'd like, then."
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You'll love each other, you will, you're both so good--
Can she promise that, truly, after what's just happened with her father?
"I love you, Maman," she cries instead, with a little tremble of emotion in her voice, and flings her arms around her mother's neck again.
That she can say, and mean with all her heart. And if she says it enough, and means it enough, maybe it will make up for the rest, and this sudden quiet twinge of guilt that she and Marius aren't strong enough to be and do everything they ought to.