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July, 1830, Le Petit Picpus Convent
It was exactly one month after the funeral of Fauchelevent when Cosette asked her father what she’d been meaning to ask ever since.
“Papa, why does suffering exist?”
Valjean paused from the apples he was packing into a basket. “Suffering is a part of life,” he said, his voice gentle with a tinge of something Cosette couldn’t quite translate. “It’s natural for all people to go through hardships.”
“But,” she started again, “Why do some people suffer more than others? Even if they haven’t done anything?”
Turning round to face her, Cosette’s father placed a hand on her shoulder and stared out of the window. “It’s a complicated question. I don’t think that anyone here really knows the answer. But all I can say is that I think that suffering can help one become stronger. And after all, if we never know struggle, how can we be truly grateful for all the good in our lives?”
Cosette nodded. She still didn’t completely understand why, but her father’s response reassured her. “We can help these people, can’t we?”
Valjean smiled. “Of course we can, my love. Many years ago-” Halfway through his sentence, he trailed off with a vacant expression, before remembering Cosette. “Never mind. But yes. I’ve made it my life’s mission to try and help those people.”
She smiled up at him. Cosette didn’t have the clearest memory of her past. Years of blocking it out had dulled her recollection of those days, but she did remember one thing. Her father had helped her, just like he said. One day, she hoped she could be as selfless as he.
September, 1830, Paris
The carriage rattled over the stones, through the gates of Le Petit-Picpus. Cosette had passed these gates only once before, seven years ago. She had been so young, she didn’t even remember what the outside had looked like, but now, travelling in the opposite direction, Cosette wondered how she could ever forget. Everything in Paris was so…alive. The sky seemed bluer and the flowers more vividly colourful. And the people! Walking across the square, setting up their shops, hanging out their clothes- these ordinary routines seemed as exciting to Cosette as if she were watching an opera. Never had she seen such beautiful scenery, or dresses, or birds! She occasionally heard the odd bird in the convent, but out here, they were everywhere, and she leaned out of the carriage as far as safety would allow to hear their song. In the river, she could see the flashing outlines of what must be fish moving underwater.
Unbidden, a thought rose to her mind. Her father once told her about her mother’s love for nature. Mother would have loved this.
Cosette loved her father. He had saved her from her old life and was the one figure who had always supported and wanted the best for her. But he was always pulling her into her new life, wanting her to forget those dark days. Which also meant forgetting about her mother. Cosette knew nothing about her, and Valjean rarely mentioned her. She couldn’t quite disappear into her future until she truly discovered her past.
January, 1831, Paris
About two months after they had moved into their new house, Cosette’s father started disappearing every day at specific times- leaving in the late morning and returning halfway through the afternoon. One day, when he returned, she asked him where she went.
“Remember when I said I made it my mission to help those in need? That’s where I go. There are a group of poor families living on the outskirts of the city. I go to give them money and food.”
Immediately, she asked him to take her with him. Valjean seemed a bit hesitant at first, mentioning that it was occasionally dangerous, but she persisted. “I want to be like you. I want to help these people, too! I don’t want to take any of this for granted.”
For a split second, her mind flashed back to her childhood. She knew what it felt like to live like that, and she didn’t want anyone to feel that lonely or helpless, ever. Her father looked at her, and Cosette guessed that he was thinking of the same thing as well.
So from that day onwards, when Valjean left for the city, she went with him.
March, 1832, Jardins de Luxembourg
Every day, Cosette and her father walked in the Luxembourg Gardens. It was her favourite part of the day, mainly because she loved being so close to nature, but really because it was the most interaction she had with the outside world, and she got to spend time with the person she loved most. They always walked the same route; however, one day, instead of following the route they usually walked, Valjean abruptly turned onto a new path. “Let’s walk here today, Cosette.”
She wanted to ask why, but she trusted her father’s judgement. As they turned around and walked through a wide path framed by trees and fountains, a young man caught Cosette’s eye. She vaguely recognised him; he occasionally came to the gardens to read on the same bench. Today, he got up from his bench and stared fixedly down the path that they were walking. Instinctively, she turned about to see if he was looking at something ahead of her, but there was nothing. As she turned back to him, he raised his hat slightly, and their eyes met.
Cosette felt something inside of her suddenly rise. Her steps faltered slightly, and Valjean turned around to ask if she was alright. It was only when she started walking again that she realised that she was- afraid. When she had met that young man’s eyes, it seemed like a reminder that, hidden away as she was, she didn’t know how to react. Something about his gaze seemed so intense. Did she smile? Look away? Look back? By the time she reached the house, the feeling inside her had given way to something else. Not fear, exactly- it was definitely a foreign feeling. It almost felt wrong. Or maybe it was just too new, or too strange for her to comprehend exactly what she was feeling.
April, 1832, Rue Plumet
Marius Pontmercy. That was his name. He had continued to appear during Cosette and Valjean’s walks, and every time she saw him, she became more and more sure that he was looking at her. Her emotions developed, too. It became less of a foreboding sense, and by a few months, she eagerly awaited seeing him in the gardens. She wanted him to look at her again. Still, every night, she pored over all the books she had and tried to remember things that they talked about in the convent, desperate to figure out her feelings. It became somewhat clearer one April evening. Cosette had been in the garden and had discovered a letter under a stone, addressed to her. She couldn’t be sure, but she was somehow certain it was the young man in the garden.
‘Love is the salutation of the angels to the stars.’
‘If there did not exist some one who loved, the sun would become extinct’
‘Love is a celestial respiration of the air of paradise.’
Love.
Later that month, he visited her in her garden. He confirmed that he wrote the letter- and that he loved her. Cosette had studied his letter, had looked over it, read it again and again until she was certain that it was love that she felt. Her feelings matched his descriptions. So when he asked if she loved him, she told him yes. Another feeling had settled inside her now, one that she recognised- joy. She was the happiest she had ever been in her life, which produced another conflicting emotion- guilt. She loved her father more than anyone else. Shouldn’t she have been happiest when she was with him? How had this stranger made her feel this way? But she tried to forget all her thoughts of guilt. For now, she focused on the happiness, the pure and unboundless happiness she felt whenever she saw Marius.
It was strange. Marius had, in some sense, fulfilled her, given her not what was lost from her life but perhaps what was missing. But at the same time, she felt as if she were losing something else. But that was another emotion she didn’t understand.
May, 1832, The Lark’s Meadow
“Cosette. I can’t explain everything, but I need your trust. We’re not safe here. We must leave.”
Just when Cosette thought she finally had her life and emotions under control, her father unintentionally uprooted it all. Of course, she trusted him, but that didn’t stop her from asking why. He didn’t answer, and Cosette felt frustration rise within her. Was it because of her innocence or inexperience that caused him to shield her continually? Her father sometimes treated her like a vase, or even treated her the same way that he had treated her all those years ago. She was sixteen now, but sometimes she wondered if Valjean still saw her as a lost and neglected little child. She loved her father. That would never change. But it now seemed as if he were her jailor as well.
Cosette needed to tell Marius. But first, she needed to be alone with her thoughts. Once her father left to collect something from a shop, she made her way out of the gates and to the Lark’s Meadow that stood nearby. It was one of her favourite places. It also gave her a glimpse of her past. She remembered the name, Lark. L’Alouette. She had been called a lark, once, too.
As she walked, she thought about names. She had been called so many things in her life. Cosette was merely a nickname. But she had never really used Euphrasie, her birth name. Her mother liked to call her Cosette, and Cosette wanted a small part of her mother in whatever she did.
And although she wanted to remember her mother, Cosette also simply wanted to be her own person. Not the dependent child she’d once been, or the sheltered girl in the convent. Someone who could experience the world as fully as possible, someone who didn’t have to constantly question their thoughts and feelings. As she reached the shade of a tree, she slipped off her shoes and started running through the meadow, her shining eyes reflecting the golden tinge of the sunrise and her hair flying out behind her.
Perhaps a person who grows up in isolation does sometimes find the most solace in being on their own.
May, 1832, Rue Plumet
On the last day before they were scheduled to leave, Cosette sat in the garden thinking about Marius. She kept peering through the branches and down the street, hoping to see him run up the road or hover just outside the gate, like he’d done before. She missed the way he made her feel, and the way he never made her feel pressured, or flustered, or inexperienced. The only thing that Cosette wished she could change was the way that Marius sometimes looked at her. In his eyes, she was an angel. A beautiful but also terrifying celestial being made out of dew and starlight. She was more than a mortal to him. But Cosette wished she could be less. If she was telling the truth, she wanted to just be an ordinary human to him. An equal. Then maybe he’d see her less as something to be observed and glorified, but loved.
Instinctively, she stole a glance down the street again, hoping for the familiar hat or coat. No one was there, let alone a thin girl dressed in a torn blouse and ragged skirt who was sitting alone on a low wall, her knees drawn up to her chest. The girl’s tangled dark hair obscured her face, but Cosette couldn’t shake the feeling of recognition. Under any other circumstances, she would have rushed out and offered the poor thing money or blankets, but something about this girl made Cosette wary. She didn’t like the feeling. It made her feel prejudiced or judgemental, so she went indoors to gather some supplies for her. By the time she entered the garden and looked through the gate, the girl had disappeared.
June 5th, 1832, 7 L’Homme armé
The new house they had temporarily moved to was nice enough, with a large garden, but Cosette was distraught because she hadn’t had the chance to tell Marius she was moving, and now he probably thought he’d abandoned her. Now they would never see each other again.
Cosette hadn’t felt this alone since she was a child. Marius had disappeared, and her father went out for longer and longer periods every evening. Tonight, he hadn’t come back at all, and Cosette had stayed up worrying. Toussaint had told her he was out on a journey, but that didn’t stop her from worrying.
She was halfway up the stairs when she first heard it. A noise she’d heard before only in military parades, but she doubted that was what happened now. Gunfire.
Her heart racing, Cosette ran to her window and threw open the blinds, but a large wall obscured any visible signs of conflict. Only the noise of the guns, shouting, and occasional bursts of light and smoke over the top of the wall as all she could hear.
Father. He was out there, right now. What if he got caught in the middle of whatever this was? What if he never came back? What about Marius?
Desperately, she threw open the front door and blindly ran out into the darkness. A loud explosion and more screaming coming from somewhere in the distance sent her stumbling back.
“Papa!” she screamed, as loudly as she could, gripping tightly onto the gates. A few moments later, she caught sight of a small group of figures moving past her road. A dim beam from the lamplight reflected off the musket that one of them was holding.
Pressing a hand over her mouth, Cosette rushed inside and locked the main door, before running upstairs and collapsing on her father’s bed, crying.
September, 1832, 6 Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire
Four months. Four whole months in which she hadn’t seen Marius, despite knowing exactly what he had gone through on the night of June 5th, by detail of her father. Four months realising that if something had gone slightly differently that day, both her father and Marius might be dead. And to think she knew nothing about what was going on, even whilst she heard the fighting.
Now she was standing on the doorstep of his grandfather’s house, looking into Marius’ eyes once again. She was so overwhelmed, she didn’t know what to do, just like she had first panicked when he looked at her in the Luxembourg Gardens. Nobody had ever spoken to her of romantic love, not her father, not the sisters in the convent. Still, despite the year and a half with which she’d been with Marius, she was still as unaware. She had had no-one to talk to about her emotions, and so she hadn’t become the wiser about how to deal with them, she supposed.
Additionally, all through those four months, a part of her had blamed herself for Marius and his too-close encounter with death. If she had told him that they were leaving, he might not have been driven to such despair.
When Marius’ grandfather gave them his blessing, the two of them rushed at each other and embraced, and once again, Cosette felt that same feeling of pure joy that she had encountered when he had met in her garden. The kind of joy that only one person could bring to her.
February 15th, 1833, Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire
Euphrasie. Alouette. Ursule. Mademoiselle Lanoire. Cosette Fauchelevent. Cosette Pontmercy. Baroness Pontmercy.
All these names. All these different identities that she had stepped into and out of throughout her life. And now a new one. A new title as well. She was overjoyed to become wedded to Marius, of course, but there was also that feeling of sadness that often accompanies change inside her as well. Cosette hoped her father would stay with them for a while, after the wedding. She absolutely trusted Marius, but it would be strange to immediately start a new life without the person who had provided for her and been there for her every day of her life for ten years. He was sometimes strange around other people. He never liked talking to anyone who he wasn’t helping. He always chose the less populated areas, the more rural sites. Maybe it was just in his nature. Her father wanted safety, and Cosette wanted adventure. Perhaps that was what had set them apart slightly in the last year.
Her gaze fell on the bridal dress hung up at the end of her bed. It almost made her seem like a ghost- another reminder of her desperate want not to be seen as beyond mortal by Marius. She was a human, and so was he. They had always felt like equals, so why not in this sense as well?
The dress made her think of another outfit she had worn, once. When her father had rescued her from the inn, he had given her a little black dress and a shawl. That had also marked a change in her life. She wondered if her father had kept the clothes.
Both these dresses symbolised change in her life, but positive change, and reminded her of the two people she loved so much.
If only they could stay that way forever, just the three of them living together…Cosette would have surely found the fulfilment and peace she had been searching for all her life.
Surely.