Lisette

Chapter 29 ~ And the Stars are Like Streetlamps

The following morning, I went to go and visit Marius again, to try and finish off mending his coat. Patching the elbows didn't take as long as I thought it would, and having replaced the pockets with the new ones I'd sewn up in the last few days, and done what I could to prevent the seams from pulling any further apart for a while yet, I couldn't help but examine his other clothes. With coat and waistcoat usually closely buttoned, he was able to hide the shabbiness of his shirts, but without his coat or cravat on, and with his waistcoat half unbuttoned, the missing buttons and worn through shoulders were visible.

"How many shirts have you got?" I asked.

"Three. One to wear, one with the laundry woman, and one either about to go to the laundry woman or just come back from her. Why?"

"Just wondering about the merits of mending them, too - making them last a little longer. It's bad luck to repair clothes while they're being worn, though."

"This one's just come back," he said, pulling out a shirt from a drawer.

It was in as bad a condition as the one he was wearing, and while I couldn't replace the buttons, I did what I could with darning the smaller holes, and patching the large tear over one of the shoulders. It was something of a relief to be sewing with white thread in what little light entered the garret room through the window: I could actually see what I was doing, which was a change from sewing the black cloth of his coat with black thread. As I sewed, we talked of nothing very much. He still wasn't convinced about coming to the ball, but with his coat in better condition, and one shirt that was no longer falling into quite so many parts, he seemed a little more confident. Apparently Courfeyrac had been badgering him about it too, saying that no girl would be looking at his coat when they had Marius's face to gaze upon instead, and Marius was torn between giving in and going, and avoiding Courfeyrac for the next month.

"He's right, you know," I said.

"You look at all the holes in my coat!"

"Well? That's only so I can fix them, my dear. And I don't think ill of you as a person just because you can't afford new clothes."

On leaving, I half ran into a young girl in the doorway. She was older than Gavroche - perhaps fourteen or fifteen - skinny and delicate, clad in nothing but a chemise and skirt, with a piece of string as a waistband. Gavroche had mentioned his family living in this same building: perhaps this was one of his sisters? He'd never got around to introducing us. She'd be about the right age for the older one. I couldn't help but ask her.

"Excuse me, miss - are you Eponine? Eponine Jondrette?"

She looked up at me with dulled eyes staring from a sallow face. "Sometimes. What's it to you?"

"I know your brother. I was wondering if perhaps I might talk to you?"

"For what good it'll do you," she shrugged. "Though I can't see how anything I have to say would matter to you."

"I don't know," I said, as we went and sat beneath the half dead elm opposite the front door of the Gorbeau tenement. "I've been writing down the stories of people like you - anonymously, you understand - so that they can be printed in a little pamphlet, so that rich people might try and understand, and change things."

"I can't see that working," she said, morosely. "Father writes letters to rich people all the time - see - I've one to deliver in a bit - and we never get anything much. Cast-off clothes, and a few scraps to eat. He says they do nothing more but dish out sops and pious sentiments, patronizing us, thinking that we're all sots and loafers. And what about them? Where did they come from? Thieves - that's what they must have been, else they'd never have got rich. Just because their ancestor was a bigger murdering bastard than our ancestor..." She trailed off. "And what do you care?"