A Rose in Misery, a Rose in Grace - an Elsanna Les Miserables AU

Note: Inspired by the stunning work of marinavermilion.

Elsa first saw the young woman on the streets.

Her face was so different from her own, swarthy from the glare of the Paris sun. Her red hair was wild beneath her cap – not wild like an Ophelia’s or any other romantic figure’s out of art, but a mane.

Elsa might have been frightened at this unsightliness. Most ladies in her position would have been. Papa Kai and the nuns had taught her to show compassion to all God’s creatures, however, and taught her not with hypocrisy in their hearts, as others might have done, but with firm sincerity. Moreover, the rags this woman wore reminded her of another set of rags… worn by a certain small girl as she shivered in the corner of the room, away from the fireside reserved for guests at the inn… worn as she sobbed in the dark of the wood, hauling a bucket of water almost as big as herself.

Elsa rarely thought of these things now. They were like visions out of a dream, but even the most distant dreams have a way of haunting the shadowy places far back in the mind.

“M-miss?” she asked uncertainly, rushing suddenly from Papa’s side.

The poor soul looked up in frightened amazement, as if expecting to be clapped in irons for some crime or offense. It only made Elsa’s heart go out to her more.

“Are you alright, Miss?” she proceeded. “I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to startle you… It’s just that, well, you look hungry. Do you want to come and eat with my father and me?”

***

Anna was dumbstruck at the shyly smiling face of this fine lady who warmly extended a hand to her. After a moment’s pause, she took it. There was no point in refusing free food. The lady’s hand was soft and white like the dresses Anna had worn in her childhood… once upon a time…

Still, Anna kept expecting there to be a catch, kept expecting that this would turn out to be some sort of cruel joke at her expense. Perhaps the old man at the great lady’s side wanted something. Perhaps these two planned to raise her hopes only to dash them. That was what her father sometimes did when he was in an ill humor. As she crossed the threshold into their grand house, she expected them to turn and box her ears, throwing her out of gates in contempt.

Instead, they offered her a seat at their table, invited her to dine on their own plates.

(They were very nice plates, she noted. Everything in this place was nice. She might’ve pocketed the spoons, but… it didn’t seem decent, somehow.)

Once more, the lady clasped her hand with tenderness. The feeling of the lady’s hand in hers was the nicest thing of all.

“My name is Elsa,” the lady said lightly. “What’s yours?”

“Anna…”

Anna spoke loosely, without thinking. Then she caught herself. It wasn’t wise to give out one’s real name, not when the traps could so easily track it back to her father, maybe even tie it in with the Patron-Minette. It was just that Mademoiselle Elsa spoke so freely, so guilelessly. Something about her made Anna want to do the same.

To cover her blunder, Anna sifted through all of her father’s false names. There were almost too many to remember. Jondrette… Genflot… Fabantou…

Fabantou sounded nice. Mademoiselle Elsa would like the name Fabantou, she hoped.

“Anna… Fabantou.”

A peace settled over her as she sat with them, though she knew it would all be over soon and that father would be furious when he learned she had been in a gentleman’s house and did not make the effort to strip the place bare.

***

Elsa had not thought she would see Anna again.

After her meal, the girl had scrambled from the house like Cinderella after the ball, stammering unclear excuses. Elsa had hurried out after her, but she was easily lost to the hubbub of the streets. The streets, after all, were her world, not Elsa’s.

Therefore, Elsa was surprised and moved, one day, to find Anna skulking at the gate. Her hair was wild as ever, her eyes were earnest and entreating.

She was sorry she had left so suddenly, she said. She hoped Mademoiselle did not think less of her. Her family was in a very bad way, she said, and needed money, needed charity. She was sorry, she said again, to be a bother, but she knew their house and knew that the gentleman there was very rich and philanthropic. (She clumsily mispronounced “philanthropic,” though she seemed pleased with herself for saying it. She must have practiced the word a good deal, Elsa surmised.) She had nowhere else to turn.

Tears in her eyes, Elsa put a hand on her cheek and welcomed her as if she had never been away.

From that day forward, Anna came regularly to the house. She would tell all the problems her family was facing and Papa, in his generosity, would go forth to try and remedy them. In the quiet of the house, Elsa and Anna were alone, save for Gerda, the good-hearted housekeeper. Elsa took this opportunity to take Anna under her wing, showing her the books in her library, casting light on a figure kept long enough in darkness.

They talked together, laughed together until the time came for Anna to return home. Then Elsa would show her out sweetly, sometimes plucking a flower from the garden and placing it in her hair.

Time seemed to glide by in a golden haze.

***

Anna might have known it wouldn’t last.

Soon, her father’s moustache began to bristle. Soon, she saw him scratching the bald pate on his head the way he always did when hatching a scheme. He had sent her back to the gentlefolk in hopes of taking advantage of their generosity. Since getting a few good looks at Elsa’s papa, however, a darker obsession seemed to seize him.

“That face…” he hissed to her one evening. “I’ve finally placed it. It’s the fellow who took the lark off our hands.”

A memory stirred within Anna, a memory from before her father lost the inn, of a small child in tatters walking away with a man in a great coat. It had been around Christmas. Snow had shimmered on the ground…

Could… could it really be?

“He got her cheap the last time,” she heard her father mutter. “He got her much too… cheap…”

Anna felt a shiver pass through her.

***

The clatter of rocks against her window jolted Elsa awake.

Uneasily, she rose from her bed and looked out. The night was shady-blue and cool – and there in the shadows was Anna, wide-eyed with alarm.

Had she… scaled the garden wall?

Elsa raced down to meet her.

“What is it?” Elsa demanded. “What’s going on?”

“My name’s not Fabantou,” Anna told her immediately. “It’s… It’s Weselton.”

A darkness swept over Elsa’s face in that instant, but it passed once she took in the extent of the desperation and pain behind Anna’s eyes.

“You were… at the inn…” she murmured finally, her voice sober and calm. “You were… my sister, after a fashion…”

Anna seemed close to sobbing. “What my family did to you… I didn’t… I… I never meant for…”

“Hush,” Elsa whispered, pressing Anna’s fragile form close, wishing she could envelope her completely in warmth and security. “Hush. You were only a child. You didn’t know any better. I don’t blame you for anything. I forgive you.”

For a long moment, Anna let the tears flow freely, sinking deeper into Elsa’s arms.

At last, she regained focus. “No, but now…” she sniffled.

Elsa broke from the reverie of feeling Anna’s body against her own. “What’s happening now?”

“Your father…” Anna started.

“Has he been hurt?”

Elsa felt Anna tense up. “Isn’t he here?” she asked hoarsely.

With those words, Elsa felt Anna’s fear bleed into her. A messenger saying he was from the Fabantou family had appeared earlier that evening, insisting that Papa come at once. It was urgent, he had told them.

“It’s an ambush,” Anna said hollowly. “It has to be. Earlier, I saw my father talking with some of the Patron-Minette. That’s bad business. I heard them mention… you. I had to come back here. I had to warn you. Elsa, I swear I didn’t know.”

“I believe you,” Elsa said simply. Her voice was trembling, but not from doubt. Her words appeared to be all Anna needed to strengthen her spirit.

“Elsa, you have to go to the traps… the police. We have to get them to your father.”

“No…”

Astonishment flashed across Anna’s face. Elsa knew the young woman wouldn’t understand. She barely understood it all herself. All she knew was that any time Papa crossed paths with the law, she and he would disappear as quickly as possible. Through the years, he had given her excuses, tried to shield her, protect her innocence.

Yet, she was more astute in many ways than he gave her credit for. She did not know what he had done. Even so, she did not condemn him.

No, they could not go the law.

But what, then, could they do?

In that apocalypse of a night, they waited. They waited in stony silence, wrapped in each other’s embraces, waited for the final crack of doom.

As the dawn began to stretch her rosy fingers across the sky, a figure approached the gate. He was battered, but Elsa recognized her guardian, the only father she had ever had.

He had been beset by old Weselton and the Patron-Minette, but a neighbor had apparently overheard Weselton’s plotting as Anna had. Not fearing his own capture by them as Anna did, this man had gone to the police. They had lain in wait and routed the band of cutthroats.

Of course, her papa did not mention it, but Elsa assumed that, in the scuffle between the police and the Patron-Minette, he had discreetly slipped away.

***

Now, Anna found herself without a father, without a patch. With the rest of the gang, Weselton had been dragged away to prison.

Yet, Anna did not find herself alone.

M. Kai was a most magnanimous gentleman. Hearing what she had done to try and prevent the attack, he opened his arms to her.

She could stay here, he said. His door was always open to strays and lost souls in need of love, in need of a home.

Now, Anna and Elsa walked through the garden again, kissing each other lightly and discreetly, adorning each other’s hair with flowers.

