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]

Mary beams back, and hugs her. "Perfect! You are dear and brave and we'll have so much fun! And you will like this dress! It was in the store-room. I don't know why, it fits me and it's very good, but when I asked about it Meg said I wouldn't want that old thing. So I think it must have been Queen Joan's and she doesn't think I should wear it--too bad! But you can wear it, there is no reason it should just be packed away. We'll go upstairs..."

Upstairs is a room that looks very much like it's casually inhabited by a young man. Or two young men. The beds are rumpled. There's a bow and quiver lying on one, and a football on the floor that goes rolling into the corner when Mary trips on it. Muddy boots and muddy gloves. A pile of laundry. Mary looks around and shrugs. "James stays here, and sometimes the Douglas boy. But it doesn't matter, I'll lock the door and no one will come in while we get you dressed. Here, look, isn't it pretty? The color is good for you, too...you can just put it on over your own underthings, I think, but not the sleeves....your hair--oh, we can just cover it with a little linen cloth, like so. It doesn't matter, hopefully no one will see you at all! Or just the littlest glimpse, but hopefully not at all."

She laughs out loud. "What an adventure!"

[lark_in_flight]

It's such a very male room, in a mysteriously boisterous way that isn't at all like her tidy, quiet father and her tidy, quiet husband. It makes her itch to either redecorate and direct someone to clean it, or to sidle discreetly out of this space that she shouldn't be in. But she pushes that feeling away: she's perfectly welcome, it's her dear friend Mary's husband's room and Mary says it's all right, and it's just for a moment with the door locked.

It's actually several moments for her to figure out how to put on everything, and how the different sorts of stays ought to feel, with Mary providing laughing help, and she has to take down her topknot entirely and make a funny ugly sort of muddle out of it to get it to fit properly under the linen cloth. But it works! It all works well enough.

"There!" she says at the end, laughing too, and does a careful little twirl. "What do you think, my dear, do I look like a Scottish lady?"

Oh, this will be fun! It already is.

[idareyou]

Mary doesn't feel entirely at home in this space either, but she's told herself more or less what Cosette has been telling herself: it's her own husband's room, and he showed it to her himself, and said she could keep things there, and anyway it's just for a moment with the door locked. And getting Cosette sorted out is much more interesting than worrying about whether they should be here.

Cosette's question when they're done makes her laugh and kiss Cosette on the cheek. "You look like a bonny lassie," she answers, doing her best accent on the Scottish words. "Very bonny. Or--braw or sonsie, I don't know the differences! You look beautiful. All right. We'll do it!"

She tidies herself up a bit first, and then leads the way back down, through the bar--and through her door. It opens from Milliways into a dark room, with the chill of thick stone walls. How thick can be seen at the lone window, narrow and high. It lets in a little bar of sunlight, enough to make dust particles shimmer in the air and enough to see a collection of great chests and cupboards.

Mary catches Cosette's eye and grins. "Here we are!"

[lark_in_flight]

"Sonsie!" she repeats, giggling. Sans-ci, she says it, more or less; what a funny word, to mean -- oh, pretty, or good, or something! And they're going somewhere where people speak like that, even if they won't actually meet any people who do. She's going to Scotland! To Mary's home! Out the door of Milliways to somewhere else entirely, for a lovely little picnic adventure with her lovely dear friend!

She follows along, and then, oh, they're there. They really are.

And it's a dull, drab, chilly stone storeroom, like a basement except for that lone high window, but it's an adventure of a storeroom, it's a storeroom in a medieval Scottish castle. Cosette looks around, open-mouthed and struck silent for a moment.

She knew what they planned. But it didn't feel real, not quite, until just now, when she stepped into a chilly room like nowhere she's ever been.

She turns slowly, looking around herself, caught between a bubbling, giddy excitement and a dislocated strangeness that makes her feel very small and uncertain.

And then she catches Mary's eye -- dear Mary, who's grinning, who always dresses like this, whose home (lonely, perhaps a little unhappy, far from France) this is -- and all of a sudden she's giggling, giggling.

"I'm sorry! It's only -- here we are, here we really are! And it's a castle, and I'm only little Cosette -- and here I am, tucking myself away in a storeroom!"

She couldn't quite explain why that's so funny, but suddenly it is. She feels like a stowaway here, in a strange world, in a castle where a little person like her would never belong: very well, she is! Stowaway in a storeroom! And they shall have a picnic and a lovely time in their dusty storeroom, they'll make it the happiest room in the whole castle.

She seizes Mary's hands impetuously, glowingly pleased. "Oh, my dear, what a grand adventure!"

[idareyou]

Mary presses her fingers in return, almost dancing. "You really are here! And it is a castle. In Scotland. And look, behind you is the wardrobe we stepped through!" Cosette's speech sounds a little funny now, without Milliways magic to smooth out the centuries between them, and Mary wonders if she sounds funny too. But she can make out what Cosette is saying. So that's all right.

She squeezes Cosette's hands a moment longer and then darts over to the storage-room door. "See, I already blocked it with a big chest. I pushed it there all by myself! And I have some bread here and some cheese and a little small pitcher of red wine...and when we hear the bells ring for Mass we'll know everyone is getting out of the way."

[lark_in_flight]

She does -- not exactly foreign, but certainly from another part of France, her accent thickened as if with regional patois, but it's centuries on top of the regions. But it's comprehensible, if Cosette works a little at it, so that's all right.

"Why, you've thought of everything! How clever you are!"

"Let's have our nice little picnic. You shall tell me about the castle, if you like! What is it like to live here? Or anything else, if you'd rather! It's so nice to see even a tiny piece of your home, it's really wonderful, it makes everything so much more vivid to me. Is it silly to feel I know you better just from one storeroom? But you know, I do."

[idareyou]

"It's funny to think that seeing this little room makes you know me! --But you know, I want to see your home, too. Even just one little room, like this. Is it...is everything very bright and pretty? Like the cloth you use for your dresses, I mean, all those different prints."

She's laying out the little meal as she talks. The bread is little round rolls, made with oat but sweetened with honey to make up for it not being the best white flour; the cheese is creamy; the wine just about fills up two little glasses side by side. It's funny to be doing this for herself--for herself and a friend--has she really been a queen long enough to get used to servants doing so much? Well, it's funny but it's nice. At least she knows how to do something here. "And oh, the castle. I think the king has other castles to live in? Well, of course he does, but I mean I've never seen them, just this one. Stirling. It's right between the Highlands and the Lowlands, so of course it's a good place for the king to be. It's not bad," Mary says, considering. "It's not old, less than a hundred years old, so the rooms and the kitchens and the halls are a good size. It's not like one of those places that's just made to keep soldiers in, it's made to live in too. And if we can, we'll go to a good window and look out down the cliffs."

[lark_in_flight]

"Oh, I hope we can!" She adds, hastily, "I will be just as happy without it, you know, already this is lovely. But it would be wonderful to see Scottish cliffs."

How exotic! How adventurous!

And: is everything bright and pretty in her own home? Well, she wants it to be, and she tries to make it so. But --

"I wish you could see my old home, where Father and I lived. It was a very humble little home, but so bright and pretty. We had only one servant, Toussaint, and everything was just as I wanted it. Father never said anything but certainly, if you wish, my child -- he's such a funny dear man, I always have to cajole him into the slightest pleasure for himself, even good sweet bread like this, but he'll give me anything I ask. Now, well, my husband's grandfather is very good to us, he's been nothing but kind. We live with him now, you see. He said the house was mine to take care of. I've tried to make it all bright and pretty, and not so very old-fashioned. My husband's aunt never has opinions either, I thought she might -- I wish she would! No, I don't mean to complain, she's a very holy person -- but she never complains, she has her little altar and prayers and she's content with that. But the servants, Nicolette and Basque, they say always Madame, surely you don't want to change that? Madame may not realize that in this household we have always done it this way."

There's a little transgressive thrill to this, a little swell of relief: she doesn't complain, she doesn't want to make Marius or her father or Grandfather Gillenormand upset or sad, and what would they do anyway? The servants aren't bad, they don't disobey her, they only politely resist, they only don't wish to change what they're used to. But to a dear woman friend, she can talk of household matters. And Mary, she thinks, will understand.

[idareyou]

"Oh, it's so much the same here! It's all--just like you say, every time you even just ask a question, it's just Don't you worry about that and That's how we've always done things here and Oh it would be too much trouble to teach the laundry girls a new way. Even Meg, who's very sweet, half the time she's too busy and she tells me to go out into the gardens, like a child. Unless I ask one of my husband's advisers..." Mary falters and frowns. "Well, that is... it's like your husband's grandfather, I think. If I ask Balvenie, he's on the king's council, Can we have such-and-such for dinner, or How do I get more blue thread for embroidery, he tells me he'll take care of it. And he does, I'm not complaining about that. But...he says just what your husband's grandfather does, that the household matters are mine to take care of, and then unless he's the one who talks to the servants nothing happens."

She reaches out and squeezes Cosette's hand impulsively. "Is it really like that for you too? I didn't think everything would be easy right away after I married, but--but it's like they want me to be a child again. To just keep on always being a little child."

Her eyes search Cosette's. Is that--is that how things are? Is it normal?

[lark_in_flight]

"Oh, my dear, I'm so sorry! I think it must be much harder for you. We only have two servants, and you know, they're not bad people, they work hard, it's only that they're set in their ways, and they've been with the household far longer than I have, I don't blame them for it really. But you must have a whole household, dozens of servants, a whole crowd of people! Here in a foreign country. I am sorry, Marie-- Mary, it sounds awful if they don't listen to you even a little. When you're so lovely and you have such good ideas, and anyway it's your right to have some say!"

Kings and queens and grand courts, she's not so clear on how that works or what she thinks about it. But her dear friend Mary ought to be able to arrange little things like dinner and embroidery thread in her own home; she's on firm ground there.

"I don't have it have so bad as that, I shan't complain a bit more. But -- may I tell you a little secret? I hope it won't sound like boasting, I hope you'll be happy for me. My Marius and I, we want to move out into our own little house, with rooms for my father, where it can truly be ours. I suppose it's not truly a secret but it hasn't happened yet, he hasn't spoken to his grandfather. But I do want to. I don't suppose you and your husband could do anything of the sort?"

It's weakly asked, because she may not know much about medieval kings, but she's fairly certain it would be entirely impossible. Could they even get a little wing to themselves, a set of rooms, something like that? That part, she has no idea about. Castles are grand and mysterious, edifices of glamor and of monarchy and of state business far above her understanding.

[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!