The Rose Of Versailles, Oscar/Rosalie: a working-class hero is something to be.
Oscar watched as Rosalie slept.
The girl Oscar had taken in months before had been undernourished waif, a grim and joyless thing devoid of energy with cloudy and downcast eyes. Though she was still young a life of hard work and poor food had left Rosalie weak, worn, dull and gray in body and mind.
How she had changed.
Now she was radiant, her cheeks flushed in afterglow, her golden hair wild upon the pillow, her firm limbs and curving body pink and gold among the white sheets.
Oscar had not intended that they should become lovers; she had not brought Rosalie into her home to be her whore or even her mistress.
Yet she had to ask herself, why had she taken the girl in?
Oscar was a child of the nobility, why should she extend hospitality to a street urchin pledged to kill a lady? Why had she taught the girl not only how to use a sword but how to navigate the court of Versailles, to move among the nobles as if she belonged. Rosalie my have desired revenge but it was Oscar who had given her the tools and taught her how to use them.
Why?
She told herself it was so she could watch the girl, give her time to come to her senses before she did anything rash but that was only part of the truth.
Rosalie was real to Oscar. All that she had suffered in her life, even her terrible desire for justice, were real in a way that the lacquered mannequins of Versailles with their gowns and gossip, their meticulously choreographed dances and intrigues. They were not what France truly was. They had never seen France but Rosalie had lived their all her life.
Oscar felt this, knew this in her heart.
Over the years, many fine ladies had pined for Lady Oscar, made inquiries, flirted, propositioned, sent her lavish gifts. Oscar had lost count of the number before she was twenty. They meant as little to her as she meant to them. She was a novelty, a prize, little different than a beautiful necklace or a particularly fine bouquet.
Oscar had never accepted any of the invitations she received from the ladies of the court. None had tempted her because none of them had touched.
Rosalie had.
She had touched Oscar with her suffering and her strength, her determination and even her anger. They were real, not games or amusements. Everything about her was real.
Oscar understood that to do something for a girl like Rosalie, to be something in her eyes was something that mattered, really mattered, and meant more than all the laurels Versailles might lavish upon her.