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The portress, always so friendly before, had been cool to Cosette as she’d ushered Cosette up to her father’s rooms. Madame Belrose had not said a word to Cosette, merely deposited her at the door to her father’s antechamber and then stalked down the stairs, muttering something unintelligible but decidedly uncomplimentary under her breath as she went.
Cosette wondered greatly at Madame Belrose’s manner, a little hurt before she decided that perhaps the good woman found her wanting in proper daughterly devotion. If so, it was a justified coolness, she admitted to herself; she had been too entranced by matrimony and her dear Marius these past few weeks to pay proper attention to her equally dear father.
Well, she had come to make amends, although she would wring an apology from her father also. After all, had he not neglected her in his turn, keeping away from the Rue des Filles-du Calvaire as well and convincing her servant to tell her he was away on a trip? It had taken quite some time and effort to coax the truth from the woman, Cosette recalled with a purse of her lips.
When she knocked lightly at the door, there was no answer. She frowned. Madame Belrose would have mentioned if her father was out, surely. She tried the door, found it unlocked. She opened it, and halted in the doorway, staring in astonishment at the unfamiliar figure seated-- no, sprawled-- in her father’s arm-chair.
“Who are you?” she demanded, more in surprise than alarm, for Madame and Monsieur Belrose were only just downstairs. She studied the stranger with puzzled interest.
He was a young man, perhaps not much older than Cosette, and handsome, though not, she decided after a moment, as handsome as her Marius. His black hair was very dark and fine, but not so fine as her husband's. And she thought his lips a little too red, though she supposed other girls might find them appealing. She examined with a critical eye the state of his clothes, fashionable but in want of mending. Cosette supposed that he was a young man of quality who had fallen on hard times, though there was something in the curve of his smile and the way he lounged in her father's chair that made her doubt that conclusion.
At her query, he unfolded himself from the chair and rose to his feet in a single smooth movement. He extended his hand to her. "I take it you are Cosette, then," he said. His half-lidded eyes flickered with cool amusement when she bristled at his over-familiarity.
"I am Madame Pontmercy, yes," she said, emphasizing her name though it still fell awkwardly off her tongue whenever she was forced to say it. "I do not believe we have been introduced, monsieur."
"Most call me Montparnasse," the young man said.
She eyed him dubiously, but nevertheless shook his hand. His hand was warm even though her glove, but at least his handshake was not as overly familiar as his greeting had been. Cosette resisted the urge to place both of her hands on her hips and level a dozen questions at this Montparnasse. Instead she constrained herself to two. "Are you visiting my father then? Is he here?"
Montparnasse's lips twitched into something that was not quite a smile. "He is out. Off giving alms, I think."
Cosette looked once more at his clothes. She was still a trifle uncertain that her assumption that he was here to seek her father's charity was valid, but she could not think of any other reason for this Montparnasse to be here. "And you are here to discuss...?"
To her surprise, his expression tightened at her question, his lips drawn back almost to a grimace before his look settled into a polite smile. His hand rose to touch, strangely enough, a small pale scar she had not noticed before on his ear.
"Things, madame," said Montparnasse at last.
"Things," repeated Cosette with a certain rising impatience. She had endured the man's strangeness for long enough. Now she gave in to the temptation to plant her hands on her hips and raise her eyebrows at him. "You will elaborate, monsieur," she informed him. "And explain how it is you came to be inside my father's quarters when Madame Belrose did not let me inside."
For a moment, she thought he would not answer her. Then he shrugged, one corner of his mouth creasing. "She did not let me inside. I--" He paused. His expression sharpened, then his gaze moved past her and an almost rueful smile touched his lips. "Ah. Hello, Monsieur Ultime," he said.
Cosette whirled to find her father had indeed mounted the stairs without her hearing his soft footfalls. He now stood just behind her, watching them both with a look she could not interpret. But then, Father often walked as quietly as a cat; she should not be startled at his sudden appearance, though her heart still skipped a beat in surprise.
"Father!" she exclaimed, and flung her arms around his neck.
"Cosette," he said in that dear, sweet way of his. His arms went around her, held her carefully as though she were glass and liable to shatter. When she peered into his face, it seemed to her that he seemed somewhat thinner, the lines of his face more distinct, though perhaps that was only her imagination playing tricks on her, finding unfamiliarity in her father's mien as rebuke for leaving him alone all these weeks. His smile held the same warmth and gentleness, though colored with relieved joy that made Cosette's chest ache. He pressed a kiss to her brow, rested his chin briefly upon the top of her head. Against her hair, he murmured, "I did not think you would visit."
The remark was said without reproach but rather a certain wistfulness, and Cosette flushed with shame. She tightened her grip around his neck. "I have neglected you awfully, I know," she said. "I am sorry."
Her father made a sound that might have been a laugh, except for all the ways it seemed like the precise opposite. He said, almost amused, still without rebuke, "Neglect? No, no, my dear, there's been no neglect. You are married now. I have no claim to your time any longer."
"So once she is married, a woman need not concern herself with her own father?" she said, and a slightly watery laugh escaped her. "You say some very foolish things, you know. And do not think I will not scold you later for lying about your trip!" She remembered then that they were not alone, and turned a little in her father's grip. She cleared her throat until the tighteness in her throat eased. Then she said, "Excuse us, monsieur. I am afraid our emotions have quite gotten the best of us."
Montparnasse's self-assurance seemed somewhat shaken by this open display of affection. His smile was lopsided, his body held rather stiffly; he reminded Cosette of an animal poised to flee. Even as she smiled apologetically at him, he licked his lips and said, "I should go, let you two--"
"No," Cosette and her father said in unison. She glanced up at her father and found him looking firm. Some of her earlier unease lessened at the knowledge that Father did seem to know this Montparnasse after all. Turning back to Montparnasse, she added, "If you have business with Father, you may speak on it now." A thought occurred to her, and she nearly laughed. "But oh! Father, let me play hostess for a while. I will ask Madame Belrose to prepare some tea, and you two can talk business while I pour the tea."
She embraced her father once more, pressing a quick kiss to his cheek, and then slipped out of his hold before he could respond. She darted past Montparnasse, headed first into her old room for a chair to bring into the antechamber. She paused inside, frowning, for when she had left, the room had been stripped of her belongings and looked strangely barren. Now it had the air of being lived-in, the bed sheets rumpled as though someone had slept there recently.
When Cosette opened the old armoire, she found it full of men's clothing. She reached inside and stroked tentatively the sleeve of a velvet coat cut in the latest fashion but which was nevertheless well-worn. Bewilderment swept over her, left her almost dizzy, for it seemed Montparnasse was living here. Had Father begun to open his home to people in need, then, along with his purse?
She had closed the door behind her instinctively. Now she took up the chair and began to open the door. She did so slowly, still puzzling over her father's queer house-guest. She recalled how Montparnasse had sprawled in her father's arm-chair as though he owned it, the way he'd started to answer her question before her father had come in and interrupted him. Had he been about to tell her he was staying here?
As the door opened a fraction, her gaze fell upon a strange scene: her father and Montparnasse's heads were bowed together, almost touching, her father's hand pressing down upon Montparnasse's shoulder.
"--explain," Montparnasse was saying with a quick laugh. His lips twisted mockingly, but he made no move to escape her father's grasp.
There was a curious flush upon her father's face, and he looked at Montparnasse in a way that seemed both foreign and familiar to Cosette. It was affection, she realized after a few puzzled seconds, but not the affectionate look he wore when he gazed upon and spoke to her. No, there was a different warmth in his eyes, almost as though he--
She found herself blushing as an absurd new suspicion crept into her mind, and she opened the door almost hastily. The chair thudded loudly against the door-frame.
Her father straightened and snatched his hand away from Montparnasse's shoulder as though suddenly burned, his face turning even redder.
The guilty gestures shifted Cosette's suspicion to something very near certainty. She met Montparnasse's gaze, read the half-amused, half-defiant look there as heat crept into her cheeks and doubtless turned her own face pink.
Her lips were dry, and her heart pounded in her ears. She remembered a certain incident in the convent. She'd been eleven or so when an older girl had been sent home to her family in disgrace. The rumor had been that the girl had grown too attached to one of the other girls, this whispered explanation heavy with a meaning she had not understood then.
Still, she thought of the warmth in her father's face as he'd looked at Montparnasse and could not bring herself to be disgusted by what the nuns would have surely called unnatural. Had she not, in the rare moment Marius had not occupied all her thoughts, often worried for Father being alone? This was not the type of companionship she had ever considered, but she could not find it in herself to abhor anything that turned her father's usual grave expression almost cheerful.
"Father," she found herself saying, "you interrupted Monsieur Montparnasse as he was about to tell me he was staying here, I believe. Am I right?"
"I do not know if that's what he was going to tell you, but yes, he is staying here," her father said. When she gazed upon him, she found he was now pale, his shoulders braced for her censure.
She set the chair down, rested her weight momentarily against it. Her heart was still pounding in her ears, her mind still amazed, but she could not bear the stricken look upon her father's face for another moment. "Well, then, monsieur," she said, turning her eyes back towards Montparnasse. "I have a few questions to ask you."
"Oh?" said Montparnasse guardedly, though his gaze turned speculative.
Cosette pushed the chair towards in silent challenge, positioning it next to the arm-chair. After a moment, he sat, smoothing down his coat and raising an eyebrow at her. "Let me see to that tea," she said. "We have much to discuss."
"Cosette," Father said. His voice trembled, and oh, she could not bear the way he still looked at her as though expecting condemnation.
She flung her arms around his neck again, whispered fiercely into his ear, "Don't look at me so! I have worried you were lonely without me-- so you have made a, a friend." She pressed her hot cheek against his shoulder. "I want you to be happy, Father," she muttered into the fabric there, feeling suddenly young and silly and unable to look and see his expression.
This time her father's laughter sounded genuine, touched with wonder as the sound reverberated in his chest and against her cheek. "How can I not be, now that you are here again, and now that--" He paused, stroked her hair. "I think I am," he said simply.
"Then I am content," Cosette said, lifting her head to smile at him. "Though decidedly curious. I am afraid, Monsieur Montparnasse, that you shall have an interrogation along with your tea!"
Behind her, Montparnasse mumbled something she did not catch, but she thought there was resigned amusement in the mutter.
Certainly there was amusement in her father's face as he smiled and said, startling Cosette into astonished but pleased laughter at the jest, "He prefers sugar, but I suppose he will make due."