Jean Valjean knew he should be spending his money carefully. He'd built a life for himself once before, from the ground up, and he knew that you had to be careful, and that you had to choose wisely when you decided between things. To be an honest man, and a successful enough one to feel secure of staying that way, you had to make sure everything you did made you more stable, more secure, more powerful. And yet . . . He found his mind wandering away from all of his more practical plans as he walked through their new home town, its doorways draped in holly where it could be afforded.
He remembered what it was to be wealthy, to run a business of repute, to be the mayor of a town. To be it, rather than to strive for it. He remembered the parties and the presents and the feeling he got from handing out what small Christmas bonuses he could afford to the employees at his factory. They had been small until multiplied by the hundreds of workers he'd given them to, and he couldn't even dream of such charity this year. He would give some to the church. He always did. He always had. But it wouldn't be much, with so much left to do to set himself up here, and it would go into an offering box at the cathedral, without him seeing a single of its beneficiaries himself.
He felt alright about his mind drifting that way. He missed his days of direct charity, of not debating the expense to the last penny and of handing it out himself, and he hoped to return to them some day. The Bishop would have wanted it. Not that it made up for the gift he himself had been given, of his own freedom. Not that the Bishop would ever know about his charity, even if if it did make up for it all.
But then his mind drifted other places, more selfish ones, and less godly, and he wasn't sure how he felt about that. He couldn't have a Christmas like he had last year, giving without fear of having too little afterward. He also couldn't have a Christmas like he'd seen the other people of his social class have last year. He couldn't give Cosette the Christmas those children had had, full of glittering new toys - lacquered wooden soldiers and spun-glass ballerinas and porcelain dolls.
He'd already spent too much, for an estateless fugitive, when he bought the girl her doll the day they'd met. Not that he regretted it. When she came into his life, it had changed suddenly. Almost instantaneously. And he'd acted on his new feelings on a whim, without thought, and she loved the doll enough even now to have made it worth it. Cosette was perhaps a greater gift even than his freedom, though how he could think such a thing after only a few weeks, he wasn't sure.
He found himself passing the tiny toy shop again and he realized that his feet, still not used to the new surroundings enough to get him home without some involvement from his mind, had brought him clear around in a circle and he was staring back through the window at the tiny, red, velvet doll dress that had started this flight of fancy to begin with. Cosette had grown up as he had, without any of the expectations of class. Cosette would be happy with any gift. He could carve her something small and rough and well-meant, as some of the workers at the factory had done, if they could take the time, and she would love it. A bag of candy would be cheaper than the dress. An orange would be, probably, something new and exciting, and it wouldn't cost too much.
He stopped and stood at the window. He knew better than this. He should be focusing on starting a new business. Building a new life for himself and his daughter.
A familiar rush of emotion washed over him at the thought. He'd never thought of having a child. He'd never thought of having anyone who loved him at all. There was too much to be kept secret. Too many real worries to focus on. And yet, here they were, living in a tiny house a few streets away, him and his daughter.
He pulled open the shop's front door and strode through in two long steps before he could rethink it. It wouldn't hurt to ask how much the thing cost. Or to see how much the cost might be bargained down. He'd become very good at bargaining prices down when he was in charge of the factory.
He left the shop feeling alternately like he'd won out and like he might have been had. He'd bought the doll's dress and another doll besides, this one made of fabric, but fine fabric, with a prettily-sewn face under its baby bonnet. The woman who ran the shop had insisted that every little girl wanted a baby doll, and he hadn't meant to listen to her. He'd said that Cosette already had a very nice doll and that he was sure she'd get by, but then the woman had told him his daughter had a beautiful name and she'd asked a thousand questions about Cosette's doll and pointed out all the impracticalities of porcelain for everyday use and complimented Cosette on her carefulness if she hadn't managed to ruin it by now.
It was a bit dingy-looking, now that he thought about it, and its hair wasn't far from irreparably tangled, no matter how many times Cosette ran her fingers carefully through it to try to keep it neat. He'd thought about that and he'd thought about how much she loved it and how upset she would be if it broke and . . . and he'd been had. The shop woman had offered to give him an extra deal on the presents if he took both of them and, wound up in all his new feelings and unused to the strangeness of having them preyed on, he'd agreed. And now he was walking down the street with two packages wrapped in plain brown paper and he was going to have to be more careful from now on.
On Christmas morning, Jean stopped worrying about the cost of Cosette's presents. The little girl's eyes lit up like a dozen candles, and she stared at the gifts and then at him as though she couldn't figure out what to do first, before flinging herself toward him, half knocking him over in a huge hug, because he hadn't been expecting it.
Brand new Christmas presents, and she'd hugged him before she touched a single one! He didn't remember ever feeling so loved in all his life. And if he had, it was before he'd gone to prison, and all of those memories were fuzzy, blotted out by the pain of nineteen years of slavery. Cosette told him that she'd never gotten a Christmas present before in her entire life and now she had two and she couldn't imagine that a single other Christmas in the entire world could ever be as wonderful. He smiled brightly and she pulled out of his arms, running straight past the presents and over to her room without a word. He let her go, accepting that this Christmas thing was apparently just not going to be the way he thought it would.
She came back with a paper snowflake, like the ones hanging from the ceiling of the small bakery down the street, but messier, cut with inexpert fingers, and she explained that she'd made it. If he'd felt loved before, it was nothing to the way he felt now. And in this moment, he had to agree with his daughter. There couldn't have been a single other Christmas in all of history that was quite so wonderful as this one. The rest of his worries could wait for tomorrow. He pulled her into a hug, careful not to crumple the paper snowflake, and she hugged him right back, both of them squeezing each other tightly and wishing this Christmas would never end.