Lisette

Chapter 6 ~ He Will do All the Good He Can to Thénardier

For a few days after my conversation with the flower girl, it rained every day. I stayed inside, sitting sewing in the window, finishing the piecework at a greater rate than I had thought I'd be able to. By the time the rain had stopped, I'd finished the week's worth of stuff that they had given me, and so could expect seven francs for four days of work. This income, combined with the return of my monthly courses letting me know that I was not, in fact, pregnant, helped enormously with my feelings of stability. The other thing that helped me feel somewhat more at home was the fact that Enjolras had bought me a wooden box, in which I was able to keep my spare clothes, and the few other bits and pieces that I now possessed. It was a plain, simple thing, but it was mine, and served well as an extra chair when we sometimes sat by the fire in the evenings.

When Enjolras was in, he often read the books he had to read for his work out loud to me, so that I had some kind of amusement while I sewed, insofar as law and politics were amusing. Anything was better than being left to my own thoughts: when left to myself, I could not help but dwell upon the attack that afternoon that had led to me being here. What little of it I could remember haunted me, and I dreaded something like it happening again. It was easier to distract myself - not to think on it at all. Other times he sat quietly, writing, and I watched people pass in the narrow street below the window while I sewed. The windowsill was wide enough to perch on, and in doing so I was able to take full advantage of the light. Sometimes when I looked up from my sewing, I saw Enjolras watching me, but whenever I glanced over at him, he immediately looked away again, as though concentrating on something else.

The day it stopped raining, I went out in the afternoon to deliver the work I had done, and to pick up the next set of piece work, deciding to go to the Café Musain when I had finished. On my way, I happened into Gavroche, skimming stones on the foreshore. Recognising me, he jumped up and followed me, possibly in hope of another coin or two.

I asked him if he'd ever been a mudlark, given his being on the foreshore.

"Nah!" he said. "Not properly, and never for very long. Too cold and damp, and the police chase you if they spot you! I can live well enough without recourse to that!"

My curiosity got the better of me. "Howso?"

"I get by on what I can lay my hands on, and when I can't get my hands on anything, I get by well enough. I might be cold and hungry here and there, but I'm not bored. Sometimes I end up dining on soap."

"Soap?!"

"Of course! Well, I don't actually eat the soap. But the barber's shops have great displays of it outside, sometimes, and when no one's looking it's easy enough to sneak a cake or two of it. And then it's just a case of selling it across town, for a sous a block, and that's enough for a good evening meal!"

We passed a baker's shop, and I saw him, for all his bravado, look longingly into the window. I glanced down at him, and then went into the shop, taking out one of the francs Enjolras had paid me for my interview with the flower girl. I bought two apple pastries - one for each of us - and half a loaf of bread for him - for later, and still had change. At the sight of both, his face lit up.

Mouth full of the apple puff, he carried on chattering to me as I continued to the draper's. The contrast between him and the flower girl was stark. Both the same age, and yet Gavroche, the more destitute of the two for he had neither mother nor bed, was the more childlike, more cheerful, more lively. At the sight of a policeman on the street corner, though, he sprang away, with a shout of thanks for the bread, and disappeared. 

Linens delivered, payment received, and more linens picked up, I headed on to the Musain.

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