The Vagaries of Fashion

by Morgan (duckwhatduck)

Summary:

"Highly self-aware, and to a certain degree flamboyant and theatrical, dandies of the mid-nineteenth century created scenes through outrageous acts like walking turtles on leashes down the streets of Paris"

Montparnasse, always attentive to the demands of fashion, acquires a turtle.

Notes:

• For .

1. I blame Max: http://punforrestpun.tumblr.com/post/58441273424/duckwhatduck-punforrestpun-highly
2. This is probably somewhat anachronistic, since my vague gesture at research suggests that turtles as an accessory for the fashionable flaneur are a thing c.1840 rather than c.1830 but NOT THE POINT. The point is Montparnasse and his turtle.

Chapter 1

The turtle was sitting in a shallow wooden box in the shop window when Montparnasse wandered along the street, glancing idly at the shopfronts. It was nibbling at a pile of wilted cabbage leaves, and it ignored him entirely even when he paused to stare through the grimy glass at it.
It was a rather handsome turtle, its glossy shell about the size of Montparnasse's spread hand, and the exact colour of his finest and least battered waistcoat. He wanted it immediately.

He pushed the shop door open and entered with practiced casualness, meandering around the little shop with the air of a browser just interested enough to be worth tolerating, but without fixing his attention on any one thing long enough to set off a sales pitch. The man behind the counter looked up as he came in, but as Montparnasse showed no sign of either leaving or buying anything immediately, his attention drifted back to his account book. Montparnasse glanced at him under the pretext of inspecting a hanging birdcage near the end of the counter, then, assured of his inattention, made his way over to the window. He darted a hand out and seized the turtle, and, finding it just too big to fit in his coat pocket, shoved it as surreptitiously as possible down the front of his trousers, tipped his hat to the clerk, and left the shop.

He hadn't gone ten paces when he realized how ill-suited his chosen hiding place was for carrying living creatures. The turtle, thoroughly discontented at being snatched away from its comfortable box and generous supply of cabbage to be jostled about inside Montparnasse's clothing, took the opportunity to take a bite at his thigh. Montparnasse let out a strangled and utterly undignified yelp (followed a few seconds later by a silent burst of gratitude that it hadn't chosen to attack two inches to the left), and ducked abruptly into a nearby alley to get it out of his trousers before it had another go. Fishing it out, he held it at arm's length and gave it an angry shake. The turtle, equally angry, hissed furiously at him, and they glared at each other for a long moment while the turtle flailed impotently in Montparnasse's grip and he wondered what to do with it. It wouldn't fit in his pockets, and while he could tuck it inside his coat, given that it appeared to have a taste for human flesh he wasn't sure he wanted it that close to his body. Eventually, with a long-suffering sigh at the thought of the sartorial faux-pas he was about to commit by wandering through the street bare-headed with his hat in his hand, he removed his top hat and dropped the turtle into it.

(It didn't help his mood that when he eventually got home he discovered that the turtle, out of what Montparnasse presumed to be pure spite, had defecated in his hat)

*

Montparnasse spent rather more of his evening than he would have liked cleaning turtle excrement out of the lining of his hat. Combined with the bruise on his leg - which by the time he inspected it while putting his trousers on the following morning, had firmly settled in to an angry dark colour - left him with a most unfriendly disposition towards the turtle the following day.
Nonetheless, it was not a pet, it was an accoutrement; he didn't have to be friends with it any more than he had to be friends with shoes that pinched or tight-laced corsets. The point was the external effect they created, after all. And it was indeed a handsome turtle.

Time for the creature to fulfil its purpose, then. Montparnasse shot it a glare across the room as he knotted his cravat. It stared implacably back as he buttoned his waistcoat and tugged on his coat, tweaking irritably at the sleeves to straighten them. Finally, fully dressed, he scooped up the turtle and set off out the door.

Not much later, he could be found strolling – very slowly, as befitted a good Parisian flâneur and as was unavoidable for anyone walking a turtle on an improvised ribbon leash – through the Jardin du Luxembourg. He spent a good part of the day making his stately way around the park, basking in the stares of passers-by. The wealthier dandies who usually ignored him as beneath notice were suddenly watching him as he and his turtle made their way along the paths, and Montparnasse smirked as he tipped his hat to them. A gaggle of grisettes whispered and giggled to each other as they darted glances at him from where they sat on the grass, and a group of uniformed soldiers paused in their conversation to point out the turtle to each other. The turtle paused to nibble at the contents of a flowerbed, and a pretty girl on a nearby bench left off her conversation to stare at it (Montparnasse was sure her appreciative look included him as well, even if it did seem mostly focussed on the animal, which was munching on a pink petal as large as its face). A little further along, a young man in a shabby coat looked up from his book to glare jealously at Montparnasse.

It was a fine sunny day, and the gardens were crowded with people; from wealthy bourgeois couples strolling arm-in-arm to gamins splashing in the fountains. Montparnasse preened at every glance he and his turtle received, but the creature itself soon flagged, worn out from the exercise, and eventually refused to move at all. On the vague idea that turtles were aquatic, Montparnasse picked it up and dumped it unceremoniously in a a nearby fountain, where it paddled about and guzzled water gratefully until Montparnasse, getting bored, fished it back out. He sighed over its soaked ribbon harness, while it hissed angrily at being dragged away from the water.

It left wet prints on the path as they set off again, though the dark patches quickly evaporated in the summer heat.

Chapter 2

Éponine arrived at the appointed meeting-place at the time she'd been told, unsurprised to find her father wasn't yet there. Claquesous stood in a shadowed corner, exchanging muttered conversation with Brujon. Babet stood with his hands in his pockets, laughing in the general direction of Montparnasse, who louged against a garden wall on the other side of the street, glaring at Babet and peeling an apple with a wickedly sharp knife and pointed air of theatrical menace. The aura of dangerous poise of the Dandy of the Sepulchre was somewhat spoiled by the fact that his silk hat, rather than being on his head, rested on the ledge formed by a nearby notch in the wall.

As she approached, Montparnasse, with a flourish, separated a long curl of peel from his apple and dropped it into the hat. Babet snickered. Montparnasse glowered. He tossed the knife in the air with a flick of his wrist that set it twisting through a complex series of spins before he caught it out of the air, pocketed it, and bit into the apple with a petulant crunch.

“What's in the hat, Montparnasse?” Éponine called, dawdling towards them.
Montparnasse deliberately chewed and swallowed his mouthful of apple before answering, shortly, “Turtle.” He took another bite of his apple.
“Why've you got a turtle?”
“Reasons.”

“Why's Montparnasse do anything?” Babet's drawling voice cut in from across the street.

Éponine ignored them as they continued to snipe at each other, sidling up beside Montparnasse to peer into the hat. This time, Montparnasse had lined the base with old paper to protect it; if the ink from the cheap newsprint stained the lining, it was still better than the alternative. The chewed edges of the paper made it apparent why he had deigned to share his apple with the creature, which was now devouring its strip of peel with the voracity of the starving. It glared balefully up at Éponine, hissing around its mouthful of fruit to warn her off.
Éponine smiled.

“He got a name?”

“Huh?” Montparnasse swung around to look at her, eyebrows twitching into a confused frown.

“The turtle, what's he called? He's a he, right?”

Montparnasse shrugged. “How should I know? It's an it; what does it need a name for?”

“You name pets, yeah? We had a kitten one time, Azelma and me; and our parents called him 'it' but he was ours so we named him. This one's yours, what d'you call him?”

“It's not a pet.” Montparnasse's tone was the epitome of scathing.

“Well, what is he, then?”

“It's a thing,” snapped Montparnasse. “An accoutrement. An accessory. It's not a pet.”
Éponine raised her eyebrows and brushed a strand of hair out of her face. “If you say so.”

“I do.”

Éponine returned her attention to the turtle, which had now finished its meal and was looking up at her with a glint in its eyes that was now more curious than belligerent. She reached tentatively into the hat to stroke it.

“It bites,” said Montparnasse warningly.
“You'd know,” snickered Babet. “Bit your balls off, way I heard it.”
“It did not bite my balls off,” snapped Montparnasse.
“Near enough, though. Don't try and deny it, mate, you're still walking funny.”
“Shut up!”

Éponine giggled and Montparnasse scowled. He reached up to adjust his hat, a habitual gesture of annoyance, and, realizing just too late to hide the movement that it wasn't there, folded his arms across his chest and leaned back against the wall, scowl deepening.

Ignoring him, Éponine smiled down into the hat, cautiously stroking the turtle's shell. When it made no move to attack her, she scooped it up and held it in the crook of one arm, depositing the hat back on the head of its owner, who muttered something indecipherable and tweaked sulkily at the brim.

Chapter 3

Enough was enough.

That blasted thing had defecated in his hat, chewed on his coat-tails while he wasn't looking, and...he wasn't sure what it had done to his cravat, but the thing was utterly unwearable. And to make matters worse, all the fashionable young men had one now, and his was no longer anything remarkable. Montparnasse had had enough.

On his way through the streets, hat once again in hand, however, he encountered Éponine, intent - until she almost ran into him - on some errand, presumably for her father.

"Oh, Montparnasse! Have you brought your turtle again?"

She looked into his hat, clearly about to start cooing over the damned thing - again. Honestly, one would think it was the more personable of them - and wasn't Montparnasse charming? Handsome? Capable of getting through the day without defacing anyone's prized cravats?

He tapped the hat irritably against his leg, wincing as he struck the fading bruise on his thigh. "Yes. On my way to throw it in the Seine. What's it to you?"

Éponine took on a wounded, animal look, and made an abortive gesture towards the hat, as if to ward off harm from it. Montparnasse had seen that face before, but never thought to see it on Éponine. That was the look girls gave him when they thought he'd done or said something truly beyond the pale, something bad enough to outweigh all the charm and good looks he could bring to bear on them. But most girls only knew him as a dandy, if they knew of his darker exploits, it was only by rumour - Éponine knew exactly who he was, knew him as a murderer, a thief, a liar. Apparently it was easier for her to accept that he would happily knife a rich man for his pocketwatch than that he should dispose of his own fashion accessories as he saw fit.

Confused and irritated by this sudden turn of events, Montparnasse upended the hat.

"If you're so concerned for its welfare, you take it."

Éponine scrambled to catch the turtle as it spilled from the hat, clutching it awkwardly to her chest as Montparnasse stalked off.

As he turned the corner, he heard her whispering soothingly to it - turning surreptitiously to look, he saw her stroking its shell, oblivious to him or anything else in the street as she gazed down at the creature cradled in her arms.

Montparnasse shrugged, rolled his eyes, wished her well of the damn creature - they could be inexplicable and contrary together - and strode off.

**

It was perhaps a week later that Montparnasse strolled up the street towards the Gorbeau house, whistling, hands in his pockets and hat firmly on his head. Thénardier had apparently had wind of a good job; it promised returns enough to keep him in comfort for a while, and a meeting chez Thénardier was also an opportunity to see Éponine, more attractive than her father if less lucrative an acquaintance, and hopefully sufficiently pleased by the pet he'd given her to be civil to him today...

As he turned the corner, Azelma brushed past him, running blindly, sobbing. Montparnasse started, glancing after her and calling out, but she didn't look around or answer, just ran off. Perturbed, he quickened his pace. He came up the stairs into the tenement, alert for trouble - were the police about? Was Thénardier arrested? Had some other catastrophe befallen them? - and caught the sound of raised voices from inside the Thénardiers' room. He paused, poised to flee if necessary, and raised a hand to knock on the door.

At that very moment, the door slammed open and Éponine stormed out, screaming something indecipherable at her father. She, too, was in floods of tears. Montparnasse stepped back against the banister, getting safely out of her way as she rushed past.

Montparnasse blinked, stared, and turned to face Thénardier, who stood in the doorway looking after his daughter with equal parts anger and bafflement. "What's the matter here?"

"God knows. Honestly, these children. All I did was sell that damn creature they've been trying to hide - eating us out of house and home, it was, and it fetched a pretty penny, too. Don't see what all the fuss is about. Now, come in, why don't you, we've business to discuss..."

**
The turtle was sitting in a shallow wooden box in the shop window when Montparnasse wandered along the street, glancing idly at the shopfronts. It was nibbling at a pile of wilted cabbage leaves, and it looked up and glared at him balefully as he walked past. Montparnasse looked at it, wrinkled his lip, shrugged, and walked on.

Definitely more trouble than they were worth, turtles.