OOM: for Cosette

[idareyou]

The next time Mary sees Cosette in Milliways, she jumps up and claps her hands. "Cosette! Oh, Cosette, don't go anywhere, stay right where you are! Well, no, do come somewhere, but don't run off, I want to invite you to Stirling, like we talked about. And I brought an extra set of clothing, it's up in a room, of course if anyone gets a good look at you they'll wonder who you are, so we will want to stay hidden, but I think I can get a room all to myself, it is Sunday and they'll all go to Mass, but I can say I have a headache and want to stay in bed. It is not a very big lie, because I did have a headache."

She pauses--not just for breath, but to see if Cosette is looking at all inclined to come along. If not, Mary can be persuasive! "You must come and see, you said you wanted to see a proper Scottish castle on a crag, and Stirling is very Scottish and very much on a crag."

Comments

[idareyou]

"Oh but no, you mustn't say you won't complain because then I'll feel that I shouldn't! You complain all you want to. And it's not all that bad, of course the servants do mind me if I'm not asking for anything out of the ordinary. But--you know, being from somewhere else, I don't always know what's ordinary. And--" And Scotland is so much poorer than Burgundy, or even little Guelders. The servants start muttering to her about expensive tastes when she's asked for something just very simple. But it seems disloyal to say so, even to a dear friend, so she keeps that to herself.

Anyway, Cosette has much more interesting things to talk about! "Oh, a little house that's just yours! It sounds lovely, Cosette. What a perfect idea. Oh, you and your Marius, you must be really and truly in love." Mary sighs happily. "Maybe I can ask James about going to one of the other castles. Without all of the council. He says they don't let him leave Stirling, but that can't be right. He is the king, after all."

Well--she'll tuck the thought away for now, at least. She finishes her glass of wine and leans in. "So--how did you meet your Marius? Did you love each other at first sight? I can ask about it?"

[lark_in_flight]

The idea that if she doesn't complain, someone else will feel they can't either is something that's never quite occurred to Cosette, not about herself. It's a funny thought. She doesn't know quite how she feels about it. But -- well, with Mary, anyway, in this one particular friendship, it's easy: "Well then," she says, determinedly, "we shall both complain to a dear friend all we like, about anything, and never fret about it! It will be part of our friendship, that we are like very old friends and schoolfellows, quite equal, and entirely at our ease."

Okay, now that's settled!

"And so or course you can ask. You can ask anything you like, my dear."

"We met in the Luxembourg Garden. It's a wonderful park in Paris, do you know -- no, I suppose you might not. I don't even know if it exists now." She laughs: what a wonderfully absurd thought, to be here in Scotland, centuries before her own birth! Before even the Luxembourg existed! "It has flowers, and trees, and paths, and the loveliest brand-new orangerie, and all sorts of things, and it's open to everyone. My father and I would go for walks there quite often. Marius did too, and we first saw each other there."

Is it disloyal to tell this to Mary? Would Marius mind? Maaaaybe, but they're friends.

"You mustn't tell him this, he'd be so embarrassed, he hates to be laughed at, but -- oh, my dear, it's so funny. He's such a shy fellow. He feels things very deeply, he's marvelously intelligent, but you know, he had no idea at all how to approach me. He would walk by, looking so handsome and so quiet and then just -- scurry off, like a rabbit, if I looked back at him. He found a handkerchief that my father had dropped, and he thought it was mine. It had a U on it -- for Ultime, you see -- and he decided my name must be Ursule. He thought that for ever so long, isn't that funny? So that was at first, we spoke properly later."

She'll be kind to Marius; she'll wait a while longer before she tells even a very dear friend who lives very far from Paris about how he held the handkerchief lovingly to his nose, and cast her significant looks that only bewildered her. But it's all endearing now. His funny ways, his earnest shy awkwardness, his deep and private depth of feeling; she loves him for all of it, now that they know each other.

[idareyou]

She gives Cosette's hands another little squeeze. There, the motion has been approved, they are to complain to each other as much or as little as they want, because they are friends.

And oh! Meeting in a garden! (She shakes her head without interrupting: no she doesn't know anything about the Luxembourg garden, but it sounds delightful, she must see about the Stirling gardens.) And oh, oh, oh, Marius having the wrong handkerchief! And the wrong name! And running off like a rabbit! Mary laughs, but hopefully not too much: she doesn't want to be cruel to Cosette's beloved husband. But. "It is funny. Oh, Cosette... you know, I think sometimes James would run away like a rabbit if he could. He never seems to know anything to say. I suppose boys never learn anything about it? They don't...I don't know, they don't read the same poems or sing the same songs we do, where people talk about..." Things? Being in love? "But maybe your Marius is different."

[lark_in_flight]

It's not too much! But all the same Cosette is glad Mary isn't laughing more than she is -- it is funny, but she feels a little uncertain if she should have said it now, so she's glad Mary's not mocking too much.

"I don't know," she confesses. It's the kind of admission that would ordinarily make her feel very young; all right, good girls don't know very much about men if they don't have brothers, usually, but she knows so very little about so much of the world, and besides that she's a married woman and ought to be utterly grown up now. And yet.

"I don't really know very much of what men learn. And I don't know a thing at all about what kings and princes and very grand folk do."

Mary is her dear friend, and her husband doesn't want to be a king at Milliways, but all the same she can't imagine what it would be like to grow up a little prince in a huge Scottish castle.

"My Marius, you know, he's shy like I say, he barely brought himself to speak to me for ever so long. But then he gave me the loveliest letter. It was all full of his thoughts. Not even a proper letter, only an outpouring, all sorts of lovely deep thoughts, it was beautiful. That was when I first loved him, I think -- really and truly him, not just the handsome man in the park with his soul in his eyes. Perhaps it's only that your James doesn't know how to say what he really means? Perhaps he never learned to talk to women, or perhaps he's only very slow to relax."

It would be too awful if they couldn't learn to truly love each other. So it must be so; it must be that James is only awkward, only shy, only needs to figure out how to show what's in his heart.

[idareyou]

Mary is nodding earnestly: it's plain in her face that she too feels that it must be the case that James is only awkward and shy. "I think you must be right. I'm sure you must be. Because of course we will love each other--why wouldn't we! We're both young! And he is nice-looking even with the mark on his face, and not cruel or wicked, and I am nice-looking and not cruel or wicked, so--so!" There. "But it would be nice to have a letter."

She leans in, conspiratorial again. "I like that about the letter your Marius wrote. I know that James' father wrote--not a letter exactly but a poem, a long poem, when he was an English prisoner. And it was about seeing a young woman in the gardens, seeing her from his prison window, and falling in love with her, just looking at her walking in the garden with her little dog, because he was young and so alone in that English castle. And--and do you know what, she ended up being his wife! At least that's what I have been told." She hasn't read the poem. "So maybe I was being silly, saying that men don't learn how to...think about the same things we do. Maybe it's just the talking." A little sigh. "Your Marius sounds so nice. I hope you get your little house, just for you. And--maybe for some children?"

Just then a bell sounds, a chapel bell, and Mary bounces up to her feet. "There! Now let me talk a minute to one of the servants, and I think we might be able to look at more of the castle. Just you sit here very quietly, and I'll knock three times on the door so you know it's me coming back." (She's proud of that thought--a secret knock!"

It doesn't take long to find Meg and tell her that Mary would like to stay here quietly with her headache and not go to prayers just today. It takes a little longer to shake off the impression of the considering look Meg had given her, and the questions--did she feel sick to her stomach at all? When she woke up? Was she tired? But she shakes it out of her mind by the time she sneaks back up to the store-room. "There, give them two more minutes, Cosette, and we can step out of here."

[lark_in_flight]

Cosette clasps her hands at this story of James' father: "Oh, how lovely! What a beautiful story."

And doubtless they were happy together all their days, or still are! James' father is still alive, but it sounds like his mother isn't? Which is very sad, but, well, it's certainly something that happens to plenty of people. At least they had a lovely romance like that, and sweet memories.

But oh! The bell is ringing, and Mary is jumping up, right before Cosette can answer the question about children. (The answer is: yes certainly, if God wills it and blesses them; she wants to have children, and she's always assumed that she will, and now that she's married it's certainly an assumption. But it hasn't happened just yet, so this is a lovely future dream to contemplate.)

She tucks her funny medieval(!!) skirts around herself and waits very quietly, like a mouse or like a schoolgirl hiding from the nuns, fighting an urge to giggle. It's not long at all that Mary's gone, but long enough for Cosette to turn her attention to studying the room and everything in it. It's just a storeroom, of course, but in a castle, in another century, and without Mary to chatter with she can stare as long as she likes at every little detail without embarrassment.

When Mary knocks three times -- their secret knock, there, it's her! -- she beams.

"How thrilling! This is the very best adventure, Mary, thank you so much for inviting me."

[idareyou]

"And thank you so much for coming!" She hugs Cosette quickly. "You really are here. I didn't tell James about it at all. Was that naughty? Well, I don't see why he should mind."

She can see why he should mind, actually, if she tries, but it's not something Mary chooses to dwell on, so she flurries herself and Cosette out through the door. It opens almost immediately onto a staircase, with very little landing. "Be careful," she whispers to Cosette. "The steps aren't bad but it's a little dark to see your footing. You can keep your hand on the wall here--just like that--and if we go down this way--I'll lead--we'll come out just--here!"

It's a room, a smallish chamber with a curtained bed and a few chests. Mary leads the way through it into another larger bedroom: this one with a proper good window. It looks out down a short steep slope, with walled grounds below, and fields and mountains beyond that.

[lark_in_flight]

"Oh -- I'm sure it's fine! If you don't see why he should mind, then I'm sure it's perfectly all right, and after all we're friends."

Okay, well, she's not perfectly sure it's all right, but Cosette is no stranger to tactfully neglecting to mention things to the men in your life if you think it would only cause difficulties and worry to do so. The secret is not to think too hard about any of it! Accordingly, she puts the question entirely out of her mind, and hurries out the door with Mary into the thrilling world of sneaking around a Scottish castle.

The staircase is dark and narrow and unfamiliar, and she does have to keep her hand on her wall and feel with her feet for each step, careful of the hem of the unfamiliar gown. But Mary's leading -- it's Mary's home, after all! -- and the wall is helpful, and soon enough they're out into rooms. Bedrooms of centuries ago, in an exotic castle in Stirling! And then -- oh, and then the window, and the view!

Cosette clasps her hands to her chest with a quick delighted gasp. "Oh, Mary!" she breathes, only just remembering to keep her voice to a whisper. "Oh, how lovely!"

Look at that. Scotland!