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The soft warmth of the bedclothes was not all that told him that he had awakened some place other than the cell where he'd fallen asleep. He missed the rank stench of the prison and felt less pain than he remembered. He had been cheated twice now of the death he so strongly desired, yet this time he had hope that there'd be a purpose to his life, if only to prove that his friends had not spent their lives uselessly.
In the movements around him, he could hear the voices of two men speaking in low tones. One was unfamiliar to him, but the other he recognized easily and unhappily. Someone moved nearer to him on his right, and a cool, dry hand touched his forehead. The unfamiliar voice said, "His fever shows no sign of returning. He may awaken at any time."
Before the other man had a chance to say anything in response, Enjolras opened his eyes, then quickly closed them again because even the dim lamp light was too strong after so long in darkness. "I'm awake," he managed to say. His voice sounded faint and hoarse with disuse. He heard a rustle of movement as the stranger vacated the bedside. When he opened his eyes again, the light did not hurt since the lamp had been removed to the far side of the room. The stranger hovered near the door, watching father and son. M. Enjolras, concern weighing down his features, stood over the bed and looked down at his son.
Only a few inches taller than his son, with wavy dark hair mixed with gray, M. Enjolras possessed a solidity of presence that belied the gentility of the manner in which he maintained his family's wealth. He had the look of a man who would have been happier as a smith or a woodcutter than as a retired soldier and landowner. His unpretentious dress and character often fooled his opponents into believing he was as simple in his thinking or ambitions. His son had never been fooled. The young man had the same sharp wit as his elder and had often used it to shred his father's more conservative ideologies. Even helpless in bed, he had the power to keep his father distant with one cold stare.
Enjolras knew he could not let himself be touched by his father's charm. Even when he longed to shut out the world's demands of him for just a little while, to rest and recover, he knew that to give into his father at any point was a trap. While he was unconscious and unable to argue, M. Enjolras had found a way to move him from prison to this comfortable room. He easily recognized the room, and resented the ease in which he believed his father thought he could wipe away years of bitter disagreements.
He had not slept in this room since he had been sent to Paris the autumn after his mother's death. With the instinct of a trapped wild animal, Enjolras could sense the thickness of the walls around him, the acres of land surrounding the house, and the small army of servants his father maintained. However, whether this was the plush prison it seemed had yet to be proved.
"Why am I here?" he asked. He kept his voice barely under his control, cool but not as smooth as he'd hoped. The effort of speaking was exhausting.
M. Enjolras winced slightly, and stepped back, as if he had finally sensed the chill of his son's icy demeanor. "Michel Victor--" He rubbed his hands together, then let them fall to his sides. Finally, he simply said, "I brought you here so you could get well. You were very ill."
"I was dying," Enjolras whispered and choked slightly. At a glance from M. Enjolras, the other man, probably a doctor, set the lamp down on the stand and reached for the pitcher that rested beside it. Enjolras could not force his dry mouth to work.
His father took advantage of his weakness to sit beside him on the narrow bed. The young man scorned his father's help until he realized that the pain in his torn body could not be ignored. The father's supporting arm and steady hand were both needed so that the son could sip the water the doctor brought to the bedside.
With the bitter tang of the water lingering in his mouth, Enjolras fought against the bliss of reduced pain when he lay back against the pillows. He said, "Should've left me." When he didn't hear an immediate response, Enjolras opened heavy eyelids and tried to read his father's expression. When all he could make out was his father's best attempt at closed blankness, he added, "My choice, not--"
"And since you're my only son," his father said carefully, "I wanted you to live long enough to regret that choice."
"Never," was Enjolras' whispered response -- an echo of the promise in his heart.
With the sigh of one too weary to do battle, M. Enjolras waved the doctor from the room. As the heavy wooden door closed, he said, "You would not have lived even to stand trial."
"My life belongs to the Republic." Enjolras concentrated against the pull of his exhaustion. The further his pain retreated, the harder he found it to stay awake. When he felt his father's weight leave the bed, he forced his eyes open again.
M. Enjolras adjusted the heavy draperies of the room's single tall window to block out all traces of sunlight. He turned at last to meet his son's gaze. "I would like to believe that you are not so selfish as to turn your back on your responsibilities to this family, to your sisters. God has given me a chance to save you from your insanity."
He walked to the door, skirting the edge of the carpet on the wooden floor, almost as if avoiding getting too close to the dangerous young man in the bed. "Your life is not yours to throw away." M. Enjolras opened the door and took the lamp with him as he stepped out into the hallway. Alone again in the dark, Enjolras lost his battle against weariness and plunged back into dreaming.
His dreams visited the distant memories of his childhood, when his entire universe was no larger than this estate, and poverty and oppression had no meaning for him. He lingered for a timeless summer in a garden with a girl whose eyes shone like sunlit amber. Even in his sleep, he seemed to sense being watched. The feeling remained so strong, that when he awakened, he was not surprised to notice he was not alone.
He heard someone moving around the room and singing in a high, clear voice that reminded him so much of his mother's that he felt content to listen without opening his eyes. While he lay still, he realized that he didn't hurt quite so badly as he had, but he felt so tired that it seemed a huge weight rested on his chest. He'd just begun to drift off the sleep again when the singing stopped, and someone sat on the bed beside him.
As the doctor had done before, the singer placed a hand against his forehead to check his temperature, but this hand was small and warm. He reached for it as he opened his eyes. The young woman tried to pull her hand free. Enjolras meant to ask her why she had stopped singing, but when he saw her he forgot to speak.
Her beauty had not silenced him. The female form did not affect him that way. He'd overlooked simple beauty so often that he no longer noticed it at all. Instead, he was stunned that the young woman looked exactly like his dead mother -- their dead mother, he corrected himself silently, for this could only be Katrine, the younger of his two sisters.
When he thought of her at all, he still expected her to be in hair ribbons and short skirts. Elaborately dressed golden hair curled around her shoulders. Her eyes were a shade of blue to match his, and her fine-boned face had the rose and cream complexion that only the pampered rich could retain by avoiding the sun. He could not imagine how the girl he remembered had grown into this woman.
"Michel, let go of my hand," Katrine said firmly.
He released her, and she quickly withdrew her hand. "Katrine?" he asked.
"Who else?" She stood up, and smoothed down her skirt. "Of course, if you hadn't spent the last decade in Paris you might have recognized me."
"You've grown," he said.
"How kind of you to notice," she said. "How dare you do this to us?" she demanded.
"Do what?"
"Humiliate us with your rabble-rousing and drag our good name into the dirt alongside the vermin you wish to liberate from their laziness. Couldn't you have at least changed your name? Wasn't it enough that you got Roselyn laughed out of polite society all those years ago?"
Her arms were clasped around her body and she paced a tight circle near the bed. She'd begun her tirade flushed with anger, but grew paler with each question until finally, her cheeks were as white as the lace on her bodice. "Apparently not, because you had to get yourself nearly killed in a riot."
"It wasn't a riot--"
"That's not what the government says!"
"Damn what the government says!" Despite the pain it caused, Enjolras heaved himself upright and reached for his sister's arm. She eluded him. "For the sake of all her people, France needs to be a Republic. The rich are killing the poor."
"By the rich, do you mean us? Our family?" Katrine's color was climbing again. She stood just out of her brother's reach with her fisted hands on her hips. When he didn't answer, she asked, "Am I a murderess then?"
Breathing hard with the exertion of the argument and staying upright, Enjolras appraised his sister. Everything this beautiful young woman wore, including her hand-sewn linen underclothes and delicate kid slippers, represented hour upon hour of grueling labor for some underpaid, desperate citizen. He had seen women half-blind with fatigue stumble home at dusk from seamstress shops and men from the tanneries drown the acrid stench in cheap wine. He nodded and said quietly, "You look damned rich to me."
She looked from her brother to the silken skirt she wore, unconsciously fingering the fine grain of the fabric. Her lips tightened in disapproval. The force of her slap knocked Enjolras back against his pillows. His face flushed then paled in shock and pain, but he did not say anything. He simply closed his eyes.
"You're not my brother." Katrine said. He heard the whisper of her skirts as she turned away from him. "Enjoy your stay with my family, M. Revolutionary. Too bad you didn't come soon enough to meet my brother, but we lost him long ago."
Enjolras heard a swish and a scrape, and opened his eyes to the full force of the morning sun. Suddenly blinded by tears, he could not see her slam the door as she left.
He stared into the sunlight for several moments, not bothering to wipe away the tears until the pain subsided. As he blinked his eyes clear, he noticed someone standing between his bed and the window.
At first, he thought someone had come into the room while he couldn't see, then he recognized the figure. "Leave me alone. You're dead," he said to Grantaire.
Grantaire began to laugh, a harsh, chilling chuckle, pausing only long enough to say, "And who's responsible for my death?"
Remembering the fear from his fever dream, Enjolras said, "You've no right to be here."
The ghost's laughter continued, growing so raucous that Enjolras wondered why it didn't disturb the rest of the house. "I think I have every right to haunt my murderer."
Grantaire stood only a few feet away, against the window. The laughter grated against Enjolras' nerves, and he clenched a handful of the quilt in frustration. "Can't you even take being dead seriously?" he demanded.
Suddenly, the ghost was quiet. "Of course I can. As seriously as I take everything about you."
"I never noticed."
"That's right. You never did." Grantaire nodded. "I took it seriously when you insulted me every chance you had. I took it seriously when you let that puppy, Marius, get away with behavior you publicly despised in me. I took it seriously when you called us to die with you -- apparently more seriously than you did yourself."
"Do you think I deliberately tried to survive while you died?"
The ghost grinned, showing a mouthful of crooked teeth. "You said it, not me." He began to laugh again, and this time Enjolras could not stand the sound.
In a sudden rush of movement, he found himself on his hands and knees in the sunlight by the window, aching with exertion, and alone except for the echo of that horrible laughter in his ears.
He gave into the exhaustion that fogged his every moment, sagged against the window frame and sobbed. He cried for his dead friends. He cried for the pain that screamed at him from every nerve. He cried because he feared he'd lost his sanity -- sane men didn't talk to the dead.
Finally the tears stopped and his breathing slowed again. He wondered why anyone ever thought that crying made one feel better. All he felt was empty. The right sleeve of his nightshirt was soaked, so he dried his face with the other. Then he leaned his forehead against the window and looked out of it. He hadn't been able to see this much of his beloved France in years. The thing he'd missed the most of estate during all his years in Paris was the broad unobstructed vistas.
The window overlooked the back courtyard and stables. In the distance, he could see people working in his father's orchards and fields. Were they happy? he wondered, and briefly lost himself in weighing the hardships of the country poor against the ones he knew better of the city poor. He could see little advantage of one over the other, except perhaps that there was not so much a lack of work in the countryside. Families did not starve because the parents could not find work. Rather, the parents worked hard and the children starved anyway because the return for their work was unfair. He hated that the children had no way out of the pitiful lives their parents left for them.
If we had succeeded, I could help them, but -- he caught himself before he could finish that thought. I can still help them; I simply do not know what I can do alone. If I can just get out of here, I would not be alone for long. There are always those who are willing to help and fight for those who have less, no matter how little they have for themselves. Those are the real heroes of the people.
He'd turned his back on his father's money, and lived as frugally as possible. He knew what a better life was like, and wished with all his heart to bring a part of those riches to everyone he could. Some, like Feuilly, had fought for freedom and opportunity without the memory of what it was like to sustain them. They had fought on faith alone. If only they had known how much he'd admired their courage in the face of the unknown. I must get away from here.
He had no idea how long it had been since he was shot. His memory vaguely suggested several fevered days in prison. Was it yesterday he had first awakened in his father's presence? How much time had he lost to sickness and dreams? The hazy blue of the sky and the impossible golden glaze on the green fields suggested that it was past midsummer, even though his reasoning insisted that it could not have been that long. Lamarque's funeral had been on the fifth of June.
How many from the other barricades had survived their defeat? How many had been sympathetic but were afraid to join their brothers in armed insurrection? He was sure he had not been the only leader arrested, although he thought he'd been the least important, or he wouldn't be here in his father's house, would he?
He wondered what had happened to Jeanne. He remembered hearing the tolling of the bell of the Saint-Merry church all through the long night. Had Jeanne been arrested. Was he dead? By reputation, Jeanne was clever. He had working class contacts that Enjolras could never cultivate. Perhaps he had slipped the net after all. Enjolras hated not knowing, and equally hated his helplessness. How bad were the reprisals? Questions ... more questions ... and not a single answer within his grasp. He wished briefly that he could be outdoors so that he could, at least, breathe free.
His longing was so strong that, for a time, he forgot his physical pain. When a broad-shouldered stable hand whose face he vaguely recalled caught his attention by waving up at the window, he jolted back into his battered body. He did not return the wave, and the man soon lost interest. When Enjolras laboriously turned from the window, he felt light-headed and fragile. The wrinkled bed clothes held no appeal from him, despite his exhaustion. Even in the sunlight, his room, so comforting to him as an adolescent, seemed oppressive.
The blond wainscoting gleamed dully in the afternoon sunshine, and the patterns in the red wallpaper glistened like damp blood. The wooden floor, polished to a honeyed shine, felt rough under his knees and smelled strongly of soap and beeswax. He was filled with the overwhelming need to flee, to get as far away from this trap as possible.
How far was he going to get in a night shirt? That small voice of reason returned some of Enjolras' natural determination. Despite the unsteadiness of his legs, he slowly climbed to his feet and walked over to the slim wardrobe against the wall opposite the window. He found it as empty as he'd expected.
The door to the hallway was only a few steps to his left, but it was locked. He felt for the hook near the top of the door where he used to keep a key. Of course, it was empty after so many years. He did not dwell on the obvious fact that his father would want to confine him to his room. He balanced himself again and walked to the other door, the one that led to the room he'd used as a study. At least that one opened easily. He half expected by then to find someone there, guarding him, but the room was empty.
Unlike his bedroom, this room clearly showed the passage of years. Larger and airier than his room, it looked nothing like he'd remembered. A large bed shrouded in draperies stood in one corner; its presence making it obvious that his room had been locked away and ignored all the years he'd been gone. The wardrobe held nothing but a folded quilt. A basin of water and a stack of clean sheets rested on a long table along the far wall. The curtains of this room were still closed, although their swaying suggested that the windows were open.
He crept to the hallway door, and listened intently for several minutes before trying the handle. To his relief, not only had he not heard any hint of a guard, this door opened easily. So he was not quite a prisoner here. His steps along the open hall were stealthy and slow. He steadied himself on the wall at intervals.
He needed to find some clothes and slip out of the house without being discovered by his family or any of their numerous servants. He hesitated outside his mother's room, wanting briefly to look inside, but his fear of encountering another ghost stayed him. He dared not make a noise, and quietly fought down several bouts of vertigo. Eventually he turned to the door to his father's room.
Again, he listened silently until he was certain no one was inside, then opened the door. The room was tidy and hardly looked lived in. M. Enjolras had frequent enough business in Paris to maintain a house there, and probably spent more time there than here. He hesitated before opening the wardrobe. Disgust with having to sneak and steal from his own family warred with his strong desire to get back to Paris, no matter the cost. He was so absorbed in his inner struggle that he had nothing left to fight the next wave of vertigo, and it overwhelmed him.
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