heartbeneathastone

Lesgle had meant to get there before Marius, so as to have a spread ready for him, but it turns out one of the clocks in the Blue Cherub Room had decided not to work. So he comes hurrying into the bar, long-legged, and just tips his hat to Marius as he heads for the Bar.

He reaches the table a few minutes later, carrying an enormous platter. Wine, cheese, croissants, ham galettes, something that the bar had labeled "breakfast burritos," coffee, hot chocolate, a few other things...

"Marius! My dearest Pontmercy friend! No no, don't get up, it's just me, no ceremony--Joly will be along any minute now, of course-- But you must try these rolls, these crescent rolls; they're a Viennese style of pastry but they're due to become all the fashion in Paris in--hm--six or seven years? You are going to be well ahead of the times, my dear fellow!"

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Joly is along quickly enough to hear Bossuet announce his eminent presence. Joly laughs, and takes a seat next to Marius while Bossuet grabs breakfast. He reaches over to press Marius' shoulder in greeting. "I hope we haven't kept you long.-- Ah, it's so good to see you!" With any friend except Marius, Joly would hug him after such a long time--but Marius looks like a pat on the shoulder is about all he can bear up to. "And you're doing well today?" No imminent sewer-borne illness? Somehow?

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"Oh-- yes-- I'm well, thank you..."

He did think it would get easier, seeing people he knows to be dead up and about. But it is just as strange every time.

"It is... it is very nice to see you both." He manages a faint, uncertain smile. "By rights, Laigle, I ought to have seen you first of all, I suppose."

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"Eh? Oh! Well, it's true; but you know I've never stood on ceremony; and ever since Courfeyrac poached you away from me I've been resigned to my fate--now, do take some of this brie cheese, it's excellent. Wine?" He's already pouring it without waiting for an answer. "And Courfeyrac has found you again, hasn't he?" A sudden quick glance up from Laigle as he asks: is everything still all right? Is it too much to name old friends?

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"At any rate, you did come to see me; and that's as good as leaving a card for Bossuet, at the very least." A brief moment of professionalism, before breakfast starts happening in earnest: " And how is your family? Your father in law, he's still doing well?"

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Mention of old friends doesn't seem to trouble him-- or at least, doesn't add any additional distress to his general air of discomfort and uncertainty. "I did see Courfeyrac, we spoke."

To Joly, he says, "Yes, he is well. I shall be forever in your debt for your help in the whole affair."

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Good, good; very good. Lesgle slips another roll and an extra pat of butter onto Marius's plate before settling properly into his own meal. "I've only spoken with him once or twice here, your father-in-law. A good old gentleman."

The word is chosen with care, but it's said lightly enough, and he bustles along with the conversation. "And I've had the honor and pleasure of meeting your bride--before the wedding--but again, only once or twice. My congratulations there, Pontmercy! It was plain to us, you know, that you were very much in love, in June."

Hopefully Marius can manage this level of very gentle friendly ribbing of a newlywed.

Edited Date: 2016-01-16 10:52 pm (UTC)

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Joly beams at that. " I'm so glad it worked out for you. She's simply charming; very kind to cats, that's how I met her, one of ours got away and interrupted her. Terrible creatures!--But she was very understanding about it." What better recommendation of character could there be?

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"Oh-- I'm very glad to hear it." Should he get Cosette a cat? Wait, no-- keep to the matter at hand. ...what is the matter at hand?

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It's wonderful how you can just about see his mind falter and shy away from conversation. Lesgle pauses for him to say more, just in case.

"--I'm glad you've seen Courfeyrac," he afters, after an extra moment of pause. "He has almost--almost--been pining, you know, without you."

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Joly, who is very formally eating some kind of wonderfully custardy pastry and not at all having to wipe his fingers after every bite, nods agreement. "Terrible thing, you know, seeing Courfeyrac nearly pining. He hasn't any idea how to do it properly at all. I was starting to think Prouvaire would have to give lessons."

...That's a joke. Does Marius know it's a joke? " He is very glad to see you again, I know. We all are. And I--well, I'm astonished you look so well, frankly. You must have had wonderful doctors. It's so very good to see." The scars are barely obvious! He didn't lose any limbs or anything!

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"Oh, that's..." Nice to hear? He's sorry?

He blushes and brings a hand instinctively to his forehead, where he knows the scars stand out most starkly. "Oh, yes. It-- it took a very long time-- or perhaps it only seemed that way to me. Um."

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Joly tsks at himself. " Oh--I am sorry. I forget, I'm still thinking of work, that's all. Very dull of me. Do kick me if it happens again." That's said to Bossuet. The odds of Marius kicking him with a reminder are very slim

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Yes, Marius is definitely not going to be kicking anyone.

"Oh, it's quite alright."

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Ah, yes, conversation with Marius: an uphill battle. Well, perhaps it's time to charge bravely in. "I admit I was rather astonished to hear Javert had been involved in your arrival here."

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Joly, who had been peacefully finishing his pastry, nearly chokes. He drinks half his coffee in one gulp and tries to choke in a nice understated non-distracting way.

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"No less than I, I assure you," Marius says. This, at least, is something he had an answer to. "All this time I had thought him dead. I still don't know how he came to know all he did, or why he wished to help." He certainly didn't seem happy to be doing it.

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And that's something Joly might have at least a partial answer to. "As to that-- forgive me, you surely know by now that your wife and her father have been visiting here for a while. But so has Javert; he was visiting well before I came here, I know that. And I know he's met your father in law here at least few times; they've always been quite civil here, if rather...well, you've seen how Javert is. I believe he considers your father in law something of a friend, though he protests against it enough. " Joly takes another sip of coffee. "--And how that came about, I really have no idea. It's been like that with them since I've met the man. He's a very peculiar sort." And this is coming from Joly, who would hazard he has some experience with peculiar people.

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"Oh! Oh, I see." Well that-- well, it makes as much sense as anything.

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"Javert seems to have been here, on and off, for quite some time. He's rather thick with the Security people here, some of them."

Lesgle is about half-way through one of the breakfast burritos; all in all he prefers a galette, but this isn't bad. He takes another bite, giving Marius room to speak if he wants. Or indeed Joly, who knows rather better than Lesgle what's been happening in this odd little tangle of people over the last few days.

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Joly...doesn't know that much more. Certainly not that much more he can tell his friends. " Hm, yes. And not on very good terms with anyone else that I've seen. Though there is Father Harman,maybe. But he--did ask me to look after M. Fauchelevent. Well, you saw some of that. It's how he does ask." Joly's smile is definitely amused at that.

" On your side of the Door--that is, you do see a Door, don't you?-- over there, I suppose he...chose to have people believe he was dead so he could continue spying..?" That's a reasonable theory, right?

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Marius frowns. "Yes, I suppose that makes sense. I suppose he must not be a police inspector any longer, if that is so."

After an awkward beat, he adds, "I do see a door."

Edited Date: 2016-01-17 01:43 am (UTC)

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Joly laughs outright at that ." Oh, no, so he says-- he's a spy, and we must all know it, because he tells us all about it every chance he has. He's made himself quite persistent about it, you know." This is the opposite of telling secrets. Joly half expects Javert to show up with calling cards that say POLICE SPY for everyone in the Bar someday.

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That seems... like an ineffective plan. Then again...

"He gave me those pistols. That I had on the barricade. Though that was not the use he intended for them."

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...What.

Joly gapes for a moment before saying, in a tone between laughter and amazement "How ever did you manage that?"

Javert, how bad a spy are you?

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"Um." Marius blushes. "I-- I thought I had witnessed a crime." Is the short version.

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" ... And for that the police gave you two pistols?" Amazing. Joly nods at Bossuet. "We went about finding weapons the wrong way all those years! We might have just gone down to our local offices and asked if they had some we could use--after all, we were trying to prevent a crime!"

Wait but they're talking to Marius. " You mustn't think I'm laughing at you, dear fellow. It's our friend in the law; he's made himself entirely impossible here, but I suppose now it's been a habit of his for while! Anyway, I'm sorry I can't explain him any better than that.He insists he cares nothing for your family, but he obviously does; he says he's a spy and detests us, and then does all he can to make sure we know his plans; and now, it seems, he means to reunite us with our living friends. He's an utter mystery. But here, we know more about what he's been doing than you! What have you been doing, since we saw you last? Getting married, clearly; and you'll have to take our true regrets for missing the wedding, you know, we'd far rather we could have been there! --we definitely owe you a dinner for that. "

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The laughter has indeed made him start to straighten up and turn red-- though he blushes deeper still when Joly clarifies.

"Oh, no, no, you, um..." Were too dead to attend? "I-- I have been well. I've, um, been at the law courts a very little bit. I've been recovering, um. And that's, that's all." Aside from almost killing his father-in-law.

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"Well, that's what you should have been doing of course, all of it." And now it's Joly's turn to look a little awkward. "And you have been able to work a little, that's good. Er. I...look, I hate to come right out and ask like this, but I can't think of any easier way to say it. I-- do you remember, back in Paris, me sometimes talking about my-- that is, a woman named Musichetta?" Not his anymore , he needs to not think of her that way. But it's possible Marius won't recognize the name at all, and he needs to understand-- "She was--we were keeping company for a good while, when--well, I think since before I knew you, actually." He knows he's being dreadfully roundabout. He's usually entirely easy asking friends for favors, but something about Marius makes it feel like asking for a favor, all complicated and prickly and full of potential offenses.

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"I..." Marius glances uncertainly at Lesgle. "I'm afraid I don't remember her. But, um-- why do you ask?"

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"She--well, I don't know that you'd have met, after all." It wasn't as if Marius had been the most socially inclined. " But the thing of it is--well, we were--we had spoken of marriage, you know, when I was done with school, and I could support her properly. Rather seriously." At least on his side of things. "So, well, I left her a security, and a bit of money--what I could--you know, as one does for a, a wife, when --well, before the barricade. Only, you know. She wasn't-- someone my family would have approved of. Not someone they did approve of. So I don't --I don't know, for certain, that she did receive it." He doesn't think his family would have gone against his wishes. But it would after all have been so easy, even if they just forgot who she was. And the other friends who'd known about it, there's no way of being sure they lived either, or were in any shape to see ... " I--I would very much appreciate if you could make a visit, you know, in the course of-- to see that things have been--seen to. As much as they can be. That she's well, and--."

And that's it, for a moment. It's hard enough to talk about this with Bossuet; against Marius and his earnest confusion, it's almost impossible. He presses his foot against Legle's. under the table, and lets himself become very interested in the brickwork of the wall on the far side of their table.

Edited Date: 2016-01-17 03:10 am (UTC)

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Marius remembers, very suddenly, something he had forgotten in the haze of the battle until this moment: the letter he folded into his pocket. My name is Marius Pontmercy, carry my body to my grandfather. Had that really been all he intended to leave, the extend of the plans he made? That, and a letter to Cosette, to tell her that his grandfather had refused to consent to the marriage.

"Yes," he says. "Yes, of course."

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Joly nods, hard, and after a moment, manages to say "Thank you' in a voice that's very nearly steady.

"Bossuet, you helped me set everything up, you'll explain what--the technicalities?"

Joly really hopes so , because he barely understood it when they'd been laughing over it in his apartment back in Paris.

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Bossuet has been quiet, because ~~it was the player's bedtime~~ he can't exactly add his personal interest in Musichetta's well-being without sending Marius into a bottomless pit of embarrassment. But he presses Joly's hand under the table before clearing his throat and assuming a lawyerish voice.

"It's very good of you, Pontmercy. Now, I've written down here her name and last known address, and workplace--Maria Charpentier, and this is a print-shop--and the properties and securities involved, from my best recollection--of course I haven't a copy of the document here--now, I shouldn't think there will have been any difficulty, but--speaking only as a law-student, of course, under your correction, I think you could look for precedence here..."

A legal interlude follows.

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For all his social-- weaknesses, shall we say-- many of which have been on brilliant display over the course of this conversation, give Marius Pontmercy a project-- one with rules, no matter how complex and esoteric-- and he can excel. Which is to say, over the course of said legal interlude, Marius demonstrates that he may, perhaps, have the makings of a not-wholly-hopeless lawyer.

"Well-- well, if this is all correct, I can see no legal reason why it could not have been done, only that-- well, as you said, it-- may not have been, um, carried out. But I-- I shall look into it as soon as I return to Paris. That may be some days yet," he adds, apologetically. "Cosette wishes to-- to be certain, you see, that her father is entirely well, so..."

Edited Date: 2016-01-17 04:01 pm (UTC)

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Joly is, for the moment, deeply grateful for the existence of legal trivialities that he can't possibly help with (and always, always grateful for Bossuet and his wonderful steadiness, that he can handle this calmly when it's his life they're talking about too) . By the time Marius is apologizing again, Joly's entirely collected himself, enough to be a little surprised.

"Oh! Oh, no, we hadn't at all expected you to dash right back! No, thank you so much for helping at all, but of course you're not going right away! Why, I'd argue if you tried it, your family needs you here, of course!" Wait, has anyone explained to Marius about Milliways at all? "And of course no time at all will pass back in Paris, anyway, not while you're here. --Has anyone talked to you about Milliways at all yet? I know it's been rather a busy time for you and your family, since coming here. And it's a very...different, I suppose, sort of place." He laughs a little at the understatement. "I'm sure I still can't exactly explain it, but--listen, has anyone given you the introductions? The pamphlet, and so on?"

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"Oh, yes-- I mean, I've gotten-- bits and pieces, here and there, I think I've mostly-- mostly got a handle on it." This is an exaggeration. But he has had things explained. "...pamphlet?"

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"Pamphlet. Written up by--it was Autor, wasn't it? I'll fetch you a copy. And after breakfast we can show you around a bit, if you like? The library, the garden. Yes? Parts of the place seem almost rational, most of the time."

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Joly nods, already swinging back to cheer. "The Library--oh, you'll love it." Who wouldn't love the Library, if they can read at all? "It's no good going outside right now, of course, the weather's too cold, but you'll see, in spring it's quite lovely--oh, I do hope you'll keep visiting! It's a very peaceful place, really,in its way."

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"I am glad to hear it's so pleasant," Marius says. A Library does sound quite nice! "And you're both very kind to offer, I won't-- won't trouble you, of course."

Keep visiting? He hasn't given the question very much thought. But it does seem impossible to simply return to Paris, pretend all of this never happened, but secretly knowing that just beyond some strange door is-- all this. All of them.

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