Seduction

Thirty-eight

OCTOBER 26, 1855

JERSEY, CHANNEL ISLANDS, GREAT BRITAIN

A week had passed since the incident with Robert and Pauline, and true to my word to my wife, we had not engaged in another séance. Already my daughter seemed less nervous and said she was sleeping better. Neither of my sons complained that our nighttime activities had been abandoned. Charles was still obsessed with the new art of photography and François-Victor with translating Shakespeare’s entire oeuvre into French. They had no trouble keeping themselves busy. Only I felt lost.

There was unfinished business with me and the spirits. To distract myself I took it upon myself to try and help you, Fantine.

I met on Monday and then again on Wednesday and Thursday with the town’s most accomplished jeweler, Pierre Gaspard, from whom I’d purchased several lovely gifts since moving to Jersey. He was much taken with the idea of creating fine silver and gold perfume bottles and jeweled chatelaines. And equally taken by your fragrances, which I’d borrowed from Juliette’s vanity. He even escorted me out to his studio to show me where you might have a laboratory to concoct your elixirs. Gaspard was like a man on fire and had dozens of ideas for how the two of you might collaborate, and he asked me if I would bring you round to meet him.

I didn’t tell him that I hadn’t yet even broached the subject to you, but after seeing his enthusiasm and his interest in meeting you, on Thursday night I went down to the beach to find you so I could tell you.

When I came upon you, you were looking out to sea, hands pressed together, fingers pointing toward the heavens. The aura of sadness around you was so palpable it was almost visible. By then I’d come to see us as partners in grief, and I think I believed that if I could rescue you from your misery, I would finally find relief as well.

“Were you praying?” I asked.

You nodded, and I was surprised. I had not thought you religious.

“For what do you pray?”

“Deliverance.”

“From?”

“From the pain of my grief. I pray for the courage to walk into that water and just keep walking so I might join my child’s soul. Maybe if Antoine had not deserted me… perhaps if he had come as he had promised and we’d married, then together we could have faced this loss. But I can’t do it alone. I’ve been humiliated and betrayed, first by my uncle, then by my lover, then by my own body. To love and then have it gone… to feel life and then feel only emptiness… to have this part of me die and yet the rest of me live… What kind of game are the fates playing with me? How much longer can I stand to mourn? I watch for his ship every night, knowing it will not come, and yet I keep walking the beach. I have had enough.”

To hear you wish for the end of your life was an affront to everything I believed, and yet how I understood it. I knew the level of your pain and the intensity of your desire to die.

“You don’t have to give your heart away again, but you can find someone to marry. You can have more children. It would honor the child you lost to have another.”

You turned now, finally faced me for the first time. I saw the tracks of tears on your cheeks. “Does having three other children lessen your pain over the one who is lost?”

“Not lessen the pain, no. But it keeps me wanting to draw breath. It keeps me alive. In nurturing and caring for another child, you can love the child you lost. You are still young, Fantine. You can raise strong sons and daughters in the other’s memory.”

“And in your novel, Monsieur Hugo, who marries this ruined servant girl?”

“In my novel, the question is who marries the perfumer.”

“I am not a perfumer.”

“Ah, but you are. And I have a proposition for you. I’ve spoken to the jeweler Gaspard, who is very interested in showcasing your perfumes and selling them in his establishment. He’s even come up with ideas for special flacons for them.”

“He wants to sell perfume?”

“Your perfume.”

“How does he know about my perfume?”

“I am quite an accomplished thief. I took the ones you created for Madame Juliette.”

“You’ve been quite busy.” You were clearly flustered.

“I’ve just had a meeting or two.”

“There’s a lot of effort involved in doing what you suggest. To set up a full working laboratory is not a simple task.”

“I’m sure it will take some effort, but think of the results.”

“More than effort, it will take desire, and you forget, I have none.”

“Not now, you don’t. Or you believe you don’t,” I said. “But once you get started you will.”

“Except I am not interested in cultivating desire. Why are you meddling in my life like this? I didn’t ask you for help. I don’t want to talk to people and sell perfume and be reminded of my father and my life in Paris and Antoine and our-”

I interrupted, unwilling to be deterred. “But the life you have built for yourself has no future.”

The look you gave me said more than a hundred words could have. And I read them all without exertion. I had seen the haunted eyes you turned on me in my own mirror.

“Come, let’s walk,” I said, taking your arm. Even though we were on sand, I heard pebbles shifting and looked down for an explanation. There were not even shells on this part of the beach. What was that sound?

“Will you consider the offer? Even if you can’t imagine wanting this for yourself, will you allow that I know it could be a good life for you?”

You didn’t answer at first. It seemed to me that the night grew quieter. The waves stilled, almost as if even the sea was waiting for your response.

“I appreciate what you are trying to do, but I would ask you to stop. I don’t want you to try and save me. Can you honor that request?”

“No. My daughter lost her life, but she had no choice in the matter. You do have a choice. I cannot bear to see you squander it. And for what? A system that is prejudiced? A man whose family would not accept you because you were of the working class and he of the aristocracy? An uncle who was able to throw you out of a family business because you were a female? There has been no fairness shown to you, and I want to right those wrongs.” I had begun to weep openly, but I didn’t care. I was fighting for something important.

“You cannot. Don’t you understand that? I don’t want your help. Please leave me be.”

I was disappointed and angry. I threw up my hands. Maybe there was nothing I could do for you.

“As you wish,” I said, and then I turned and stomped away. I’d gone twenty or thirty steps when I felt a sudden need to look back. Not more than two minutes could have passed, but already you were gone.

“Fantine?” No answer. “Fantine?” I shouted louder. You didn’t respond.

I ran back to the shore and saw what I had not been able to see from where I’d been standing. You had walked into the sea. Were walking still, your clothes billowing out around you. I didn’t have to stop and think. I knew exactly what you were planning. You wanted to drown yourself. I understood the sounds I’d heard when you’d moved earlier-not pebbles underfoot but stones you’d sewn into your dress.

And so the battle began. The water was freezing. You were heavy because of all those rocks in your pockets and in your hem. And you fought me with a ferocity I wouldn’t have expected. I’d never known anyone who wanted more to die than you did that night. But something in me could no sooner let you drown than I could have let Didine drown.

A wave crashed over us, and for a moment I lost you. I swallowed too much water. Came up coughing. I wondered if I was going to be the one to drown. Would you watch as I lost my life in that cold, salty water? Or would you come to my rescue? Then I caught my breath, found my footing and grabbed hold of you.

You fought and hit and scratched and pulled at my hair. Another wave came and we both lost balance. I managed to keep hold of you and together we were thrown toward the shore, then pulled out toward the sea again. When the water receded, you were still in my arms and you’d stopped fighting. You were limp. In the breakers’ turmoil, as I later found out, you’d hit your head and now were unconscious and even heavier than before. I ripped at your dress and pulled off the skirt that was full of rocks. With that weight gone, I was able to fight the current and drag your body up onto the beach.

Your breathing was shallow and your eyes were closed and you were unresponsive. I didn’t know what to do. Or how to get help. To do that I’d have to leave you, and that seemed the most dangerous path to take. It was cold out, the water had been freezing and we both were soaked through. I knew that if you were going to survive, if I was going to survive, we needed to warm up.

Lucifer’s Lair was just behind us. I’d seen kindling there and flints. If I could carry you to the cave, perhaps there was a chance. Perhaps.