22
Title: "Rescue"
Author: Darkover
Rating: T
Disclaimer: See Chapter One.
Summary: See Chapter One.
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Chapter Four: "I Am From the Gutter, Too"
Valjean and his foster daughter walked at their usual leisurely pace, Cosette with her hand on her father's arm. Javert followed, or at least Valjean assumed the Inspector was still following. He trailed behind father and daughter like a sulky adolescent forced to endure the company of his parents.
The sun had ducked behind some clouds almost as soon as they had left the house, so Cosette did not bother to raise her parasol, but she used it to gesture to some flowers growing in a nearby window box. "What lovely blossoms, Papa! Inspector, have you ever seen the like?" Cosette added the last remark with a backward glance and a smile, in what was clearly an attempt to include Javert.
"They are indeed lovely, Mademoiselle," Javert said, in a tone more polite than enthusiastic.
But as they continued on their walk, such signs of bourgeoisie living became fewer and far between; they were entering the less-affluent areas. Valjean, as usual, pulled out his purse and handed a few coins to his daughter so that they could both distribute alms. At the sight of the purse, beggars began to appear, and several approached them with a sort of fawning eagerness. Valjean pretended not to hear the snort of derision behind him and Cosette as they handed out money to those who seemed to need it most. One waif of a girl who approached Valjean appeared particularly pathetic.
"Please, Monsieur, spare something for my mother and baby brother? Maman gave birth to him just this morning, and she is too weak to have milk for him, she has not even stopped bleeding!"
"She is still bleeding?" Valjean echoed, concerned. "Where is your mother, child?"
"This way, M'sieur!" The girl ducked down a darkened alleyway.
"Come, Cosette, the poor woman may feel more comfortable with another lady present," Valjean said, placing his hand over his daughter's as it rested on his sleeve. Cosette nodded, her concern as great as her father's, her hand tightening on his arm.
"Wait!"
Valjean ignored both the Inspector's call and the warning note in the other man's voice as he and his daughter hurried to follow the young girl into the alley.
Once inside, there was no sign of the girl, or of any woman, but two brutal-looking young men immediately stepped forward. "We'll take that purse, Monsieur. And the girl, too!"
"No!" Valjean immediately placed himself between his daughter and the men. Cosette screamed as they grabbed her father's arms.
"Shut her up!" the first thug ordered, but that was as far as he got. At the mouth of the alley, looming up from behind Cosette, came the Inspector. Snatching the unopened parasol from the girl's hand, Javert whipped it around in a vicious arc to smash the first attacker in the face. The ivory handle struck the bridge of his nose hard enough to break it, causing him to scream as the blood spurted out copiously. Javert did not even pause, but whipped around to drive the point of the parasol into the groin of the second man, whose shriek in response to this action made the cry of the first thug seem like a whimper by comparison. Valjean, pulling himself free, shoved the young men away from his daughter and pulled Cosette to safety while Javert returned his attention to the thug with the bloody nose. Once again using the point of the parasol, he drove it into the solar plexus of this first man, forcing all the breath out of him in a wheeze and making him double over. Javert then kicked the legs out from beneath the thug with the wounded groin, so that both of the young men fell to the ground, writhing in pain. Javert stood over them, continuing to clutch the parasol he had utilized so effectively as a weapon, but he did not need to apply it again; neither of the two thugs was inclined to offer any further resistance. The fight had begun and was over in less than a minute.
There were the sound of pounding footsteps, and two young gendarmes, their truncheons at the ready, thrust their way into the alley. "Mademoiselle! We heard a scream, are you hurt?" the first, a young man with blond hair, said to Cosette. Then, catching sight of her father, who was holding her protectively, the blond gendarme directed his next question to Valjean. "Monsieur! What has happened here?"
The second gendarme, equally young but with dark hair and a slightly burlier build, had caught sight of the uniformed figure standing over the two men on the ground. He saw and recognized both the uniform and its wearer. "Inspector Javert!" he said, awed. Javert was something of a legend to many of the younger men on the police force, and this dark-haired young man was no exception.
"Arrest these two men," the Inspector said, indicating the figures on the ground. "They attempted to rob and assault this gentleman and his daughter, and to violate the young lady." Cosette hid her face against her father's shoulder.
"Javert!" Valjean hissed. The Inspector looked at him.
"Charge them also with attempted assault upon a police inspector," he finished. "Take them to the station. As I saw the whole thing, I can give you my statement later. This gentleman wishes to take his daughter home, as she has been through quite an ordeal. There is no need for either of them to be involved any further."
The blond gendarme blinked in surprise, but merely said, "Yes sir." He and his partner had already searched the two thugs and manacled them; the burly gendarme was snarling at them to get up and get moving. He had found wicked-looking knives on the persons of both thugs, which did not make him feel more charitable towards them. The gendarmes hustled the wounded miscreants out of the alley and in the direction of the police station.
Together, Valjean, Cosette, and the Inspector cleared the alley and returned to the street. The sun had come out, and all three of them instinctively lifted their faces to the blue sky. Javert was still holding the parasol. It should have looked odd. It did not. In his hands, it looked like what it was, at least when he was wielding it: a weapon.
"Thank you, Inspector," Valjean murmured, grateful not just for the other man's actions, but for keeping him—Valjean—and an already-frightened Cosette out of any further contact with either the two thugs or the police.
Javert nodded, and then almost casually handed the parasol back to Cosette. "Thank you, Mademoiselle. Your parasol was not the same as my truncheon, but it was effective," he observed with a touch of satisfaction.
It was that remark, coupled with the Inspector's complete lack of concern for personal safety, which rankled Valjean. He could not help but be apprehensive at how willingly the other man had risked being hurt; his concern came out so forcefully that it sounded like anger. "Javert, are you mad? Those two men could have been much more heavily armed, and both are younger than you!"
"Do you expect me to see a crime committed before my eyes and do nothing about it?" the Inspector countered.
"I expect you to refrain from getting yourself killed!" Valjean was still too upset to be reasonable. "Do not think I cannot see what you were trying to do, Inspector! There is more than one way of committing suicide!"
"You walk down a dark alley on an unsafe street with a pretty young girl on your arm, a fat purse hanging from the other, and you call *me* suicidal?" Javert snarled.
"Please, stop!" a female voice begged.
The two men abruptly fell silent and stared at Cosette. She was white-faced and still clearly shaken as she entreated them, although she spoke with determination, clutching her father's arm firmly. "Please, Papa, Inspector, stop quarrelling. You are only shouting at each other because you are friends, and each is worried that the other might come to harm, I know, but that is the very reason why you should not shout at each other. Friends should show each other kindness and understanding."
The two men turned their stares from the girl to each other. She sees us as friends? And then, right on the heels of that thought; Are we not? Would we inspire such emotion in each other, if we did not care about the other's welfare? Much the same thoughts having occurred simultaneously to them both, they both hastily looked away.
"Also, I confess to being rather frightened," Cosette finished, a bit tremulously. "Papa, please, may we go home now?"
Instantly remorseful, Valjean took her small hand and kissed it. "Of course, my darling. I am so sorry I exposed you to this."
"You should be," Javert growled. Valjean shot him a dark look. Cosette stepped up, and took hold of each man's arm, so that she stood between them while simultaneously drawing them together.
"Inspector, I am quite remiss—I have not thanked you for your courage in fighting off those men. I am most grateful," she told Javert, and then looked at her father. "Papa, as always, you were there for me, and your first thought was to protect me. You are both so brave!" she assured them, with a smile that was as sweet as she was beautiful. She kissed her father's cheek, and then turned to smile again at the Inspector. "Thank the good God none of us were harmed. So let us not speak anymore about it."
Javert gazed down at her. "Of course, Mademoiselle," he said, a bit gruffly, although he shot a look at her father over her head that suggested he might still have a great deal to say to Valjean on the subject at a later time. "I have no wish to upset you further."
"Nor I," Valjean said, tucking his daughter's arm all the more firmly into the crook of his own. "Let us all go home now."
Javert made a start to move off in another direction, but Cosette retained her hold upon his arm. "Inspector, where are you going?" she asked guilelessly. "Surely, you must come back home with us." Next to her, Valjean nodded.
Javert seemed to want to pull away, but he would have had to exercise force, which he was clearly unwilling to exert against the young girl. He closed his mouth and nodded in return. The three of them set off down the street to return to Valjean's house.
When they reached home, Cosette excused herself to go to her room. Valjean, after urging the girl to rest until it was time for dinner, asked Javert to join him in the parlor. The curtains were still open from this morning, and perhaps because the evenings were cool, Toussaint had built a fire in the hearth. Valjean took his customary seat, the easy chair that Javert had occupied that morning when listening to Cosette read poetry, and then indicated the second chair that was opposite his own, near the sofa. "Sit down, Inspector."
Warily, Javert seated himself in the chair. "Do not think you can reprimand me, Valjean. You are no longer Monsieur le Maire."
"And when we spoke this morning, you would have had me believe that you are no longer a policeman," his host countered. "Your recent actions seem to contradict that idea."
"I did what was necessary."
"Quite so, and I am grateful," Valjean said sincerely. "You helped not only me, but far more importantly, you protected Cosette. I merely wish to point out that when you did so, you were acting as a police inspector, were you not? There would seem to still be some good you can continue to do by remaining in your occupation."
Javert rose to pace the room. "Perhaps. That does not alter the fact that I made your life miserable for many years. Or that when it came to arrest you, when I had to choose between my duty and you, I chose…" He fell silent, but the word you, while unspoken, hung between them as plainly as if he had announced it aloud.
"You are a very good policeman, Inspector—"
Javert stopped dead, glaring at the older man. "Do not patronize me, Valjean!"
"I'm not," the latter said, feeling helpless to convince the Inspector otherwise. This argument was rapidly becoming a circular one, but thinking about what Javert had almost said—and things he had said earlier, but which Valjean had not at the time comprehended fully—made Valjean pause and think hard for a moment.
"Is *that* why you were going to throw yourself into the Seine? Because you felt it was a choice between either arresting me, or violating your duty?"
Javert's expression took on a cornered, almost desperate look.
"And the only solution you could contrive was to remove yourself from the situation entirely?" Valjean pressed. Javert looked away. "Oh, dear God," the older man breathed. "You were going to kill yourself as a way of protecting me…"
"Change the subject, Valjean," the Inspector snarled.
He is still a wolf. And it is never wise to corner a wolf. Then, on the heels of that thought: No, not a wolf. He is a man. Allow him the dignity of one. "All right," Valjean said aloud. "You told me once that you were born inside a jail. M. le Prefect let me know that your mother was a gypsy fortune teller, and your father a convict in the galleys."
"Gisquet always has talked too much for a policeman. How he managed to become M. le Prefect is a mystery in itself," Javert muttered, then glowered at his host. "What of it?"
"Do you think…" Valjean spoke like a man walking upon eggshells. "Do you suppose that might have something to do with why you became a policeman?"
"Yes, of course it did!" Javert snapped. "I learned from birth that I could be as they were, or I could choose the side of goodness and right. I could preserve and protect the law. Becoming a prison guard, and then a policeman, was the only choice I ever truly had. That was as close as a half-gypsy bastard could hope to come to being a part of society!"
Valjean winced. "Please, Javert. Do not speak of yourself like that."
The Inspector shrugged. "Why should I not? It is a fact. Oh, don't look like at me like that, Valjean. I heard far worse epithets applied to me even in my earliest childhood. For a time, I even thought 'Whoreson' was my Christian name."
"What *is* your Christian name?"
The Inspector looked at him, his expression unreadable.
"Surely you have one?" Valjean smiled at his guest. "Come now, Javert, whatever it is, it cannot be that bad."
The other man spoke tonelessly. "'Male Infant' Javert."
For a moment, Valjean was too shocked to continue. He had been born and raised in Faverolles, among peasants, where the birth of a child was all too often regarded as yet another mouth to feed. But even among such people, even stillborn infants were given names and baptized before being consigned to the earth. That a mother, that parents could produce a living, healthy child and not bother to give him a name, was almost beyond the comprehension of the former 24601. "Your parents…" he said aloud, not able to keep the stunned disbelief from his voice. "They did not name you?"
The Inspector shrugged. "I was not wanted, Valjean. My mother got careless."
"But…" the former 24601 could scarcely form words. So far as Jean Valjean was concerned, one of the worst things that had been done to him when he was made a prisoner was that he was stripped of his name. To strip a human being of his or her name was to remove all traces of his or her individuality; not even to give a name to a child was from his perspective a crime as bad or worse than that for which men were imprisoned. "What did they call you?" he asked.
"The guards used to call me Petit Javert, or at least some did. My mother usually referred to me as her 'little bastard.' How does this matter, Valjean?"
A deeply troubled expression crossed Valjean's face. "Surely you were given a name at your baptism. You were baptized, were you not?" he asked anxiously.
Javert sighed. "Yes, Valjean, eventually I was. The name given to me by the prison chaplain who performed the sacrament was the same as that of my father, whom I hated even then. So I never use it. I inherited my size, strength, and blue eyes from him; from my gypsy mother, I received my dark hair, dark skin, and cunning mind. That is all I ever received from either of them, other than abuse. There is no more to be said."
That was certainly true. The former 24601 could think of nothing to say, other than how sorry he was, and he sensed instinctively that would be perhaps the worst thing he could say to this man under the circumstances.
"Stop looking at me like that, Valjean. I told you, I will not have your pity!"
"I pity the child you once were, Inspector," he answered sincerely. "I have only respect and admiration for the man you are now. You have overcome impossible odds."
Javert looked away, then rose, took hold of the fireplace poker, and jabbed at the logs a few times. Valjean, understanding that this was less a matter of attending to the fire than of avoiding the emotions that had been raised by their conversation, waited patiently. A few minutes later, the Inspector returned to the chair and faced his interlocutor squarely.
"Enough of your questioning me. If I am to remain a policeman, that should be my role, should it not?"
Valjean stared at his guest. "Did you just make a joke?"
The Inspector's lips twitched. "Forgive me if it was a poor one. I am out of practice." He turned serious, his gaze narrowing. "Do not try to divert me. What about you, Valjean? Why are you helping a man who has been your enemy for so many years?"
"I don't believe you are my enemy any longer," the older man said. "And even when I thought you were, I did not wish to see you dead. You were doing your duty as you understood it."
"You seem to have an undue fascination with my past. What about yours?"
"What do you wish to know?"
"Why do you have this strange desire to save everyone?"
"Because a very good man once saved me," Valjean answered simply. "And not everyone. I just do what I can. Mostly, than involves giving alms."
"Which is dangerous," the Inspector growled. "You should not go into the slums to indulge your do-gooding."
Valjean smiled. "One seldom finds the poor in the more affluent neighborhoods, my dear Inspector," he said gently.
His guest fidgeted. "Point taken. And with all that has transpired thus far, I think you should be allowed to call me 'Javert.'"
Valjean's smiled again, genuinely pleased.
"But you should not take the girl with you on such forays," the Inspector insisted. "The streets you frequent are unsafe. They are no place for a young lady."
His host's expression turned serious. "I would never willingly endanger Cosette. But I believe it is important to teach her charity, kindness, and compassion. What happened today was hardly typical, Javert."
The Inspector growled once more. "Well, perhaps in future, I should accompany the two of you. It would not do for this to happen again."
"Perhaps," was as far as Valjean was willing to concede, as he suspected beggars would not be willing to approach with the formidable Inspector Javert nearby.
"Is that why you tried to save the jade, years ago? Out of charity?"
The former 24601 stared at him. "Do you mean Fantine? Why else would I have tried to save her?"
Javert grimaced. "From the heartless policeman who would have arrested her," he said, a bit sarcastically. "I didn't know why you helped her, Valjean. In my experience at the time, gentlemen did not go out of their way to help prostitutes, not unless the gentleman expects to be paid in trade."
"She was a sick woman with a child and no money! She needed help."
"That is what she said when I arrested her, yes." He held up a hand to forestall speech. "Valjean, I know what you thought of me, and of my actions. You made that very clear at the time. But every person I have ever had to arrest has always had some reason why I should not carry out my duty. Her story was by no means the most heartrending, even if it were true—which most of the time, I can assure you, such stories were not."
"I wondered why you were so hard on her."
"Hard on her? I had no evidence save that of a respectable citizen's complaint. Bamatabois may have been a useless dandy and a whore-monger, but he was a respectable bourgeoisie with no police record, and he had some proof of his story in the form of scratches on his face. No one came forward to say things were other than what he claimed. And at least by arresting Fantine, I would have been getting her off the streets for a time, out of the cold and away from violent clients and vicious pimps."
"I never realized," Valjean admitted. He gave the Inspector a faint, rather sad smile. "I held that against you for a long time. Especially when you came to arrest me, right in front of her."
Javert grimaced. "And how I behaved? I admit, my actions were appalling." He took a deep breath, and the words that followed were words that the former 24601 never expected to hear from the lips of Inspector Javert. "Forgive me, Valjean. But perhaps you will allow me to explain. As you know, I had believed you to be a convict, the man who broke his parole. When I shared by concerns with my superiors, they not only refused to listen, they told me I was mad. I went to you to apologize, fully expecting you to remove me from my post—" Seeing his host was about to speak, Javert held up a hand once more to forestall any interruption. "Please, let me finish, or I never will. I know that you would never do such a thing. You *did* not. But such mercy was completely outside my experience. It made me wonder if you wanted to keep me in my position because, as the man whose foolish, arrogant mistake you had forgiven, you would feel morally superior to me. You could indulge in such a feeling every time you looked at me. I just did not understand you, Monsieur le Maire. And I did not understand your charity—if that was indeed what it was, I did not believe so at the time—to a street jade. All I knew on that occasion was that you deliberately overruled my authority, and humiliated me in front of my men."
Valjean stared at his guest. As humiliating Javert had never been his intention, he had never considered that this might be how the Inspector felt about all this. But he forced himself to remain silent, recognizing how hard it was for the other man to say all this, waiting for him to finish.
Javert took another deep breath, and this time he forced himself to make eye contact. "So when I learned that I had been right from the very beginning, that Monsieur le Maire was indeed Jean Valjean, Prisoner 24601, all I could think of was that you must be laughing at me, as my superiors had laughed at me. You and your whore, laughing at the stupid Inspector behind his back. And I most certainly did not believe you when you offered to return in three days, after having rescued her child. As I said, people always have excuses as to why I should not arrest them. For what it is worth, Valjean, I am sorry that I handled the situation the way I did."
Both men were silent for a moment, Valjean absorbing all that was said, all that he had never thought about concerning the Inspector and the latter's motivations. Javert leaned back in the chair as if drained. After a moment, he spoke quietly. "May I ask one more question?"
"You may ask as many as you like," his host said gently.
"In Toulon, you always said you stole bread to save the life of your sister's child. Was that true?"
"Yes. Did you not believe me?" Valjean was no longer offended by Javert's disbelief, as he understood it now.
"No," the Inspector said simply. "I have heard so many tales from criminals, Valjean, most of them lies. Every man in prison is innocent, at least if you believe what they have to say about it."
"I spoke the truth, Javert. And at that time, I blamed you, and every other guard, for not believing me. I no longer feel the same towards you, either," he admitted. "I understand now that you were once as poor and hungry as I, and yet, you never stole."
"You did not steal for yourself, but to save the life of a child. I believe and understand that now." The Inspector was silent for a moment before adding carefully; "There was a time not long ago when even had I believed you, such a motive would not have mattered to me. Right was right, wrong was wrong, and the law was always right. It is more complicated, I begin to see that now. But it is still hard for me to understand. The compass by which I have navigated my life is broken, and I am still at sea."
Valjean rose from his seat, extending his hand to be clasped. "Then I shall be your lighthouse, if you will allow me," he said. "Cosette and Gisquet already believe us to be friends. Can we not be so in fact?"
Javert stared at the outthrust hand for a moment, and then stood up and took it, clasping it firmly but without shaking it. "I confess I know little about friendship, or about being a friend," he muttered. "But I shall try."
"Honest as ever," his host said, smiling, and shook hands with the Inspector before releasing his hand. At that moment, there came a knock on the parlor door, and Toussaint's voice from outside, telling them that dinner was almost ready.
"You will of course join us for dinner, Javert. And spend the night again, as well."
"I could not imposition you," the Inspector protested. "I have trespassed upon your hospitality enough."
"Nonsense. The bed is still large enough for the both of us."
"I have been sleeping in your bed? With you?" Javert seemed aghast by this, and Valjean recalled that on the night he had saved the Inspector from suicide, the latter had been too much in shock to take notice of much; moreover, whenever the Inspector had awakened, Valjean himself had already been up and out of bed. So perhaps it was news to the Inspector.
Valjean grinned. "Don't worry, Javert," he said lightly. "Your virtue is safe with me."
The Inspector shot him an intense look, and for a moment, Valjean wondered if he had gone too far. And then, to his astonishment, Javert laughed.
TBC…