Chapter Eight

Disclaimer: I do not own Les Misérables.

Valjean had owned a factory for several years now and its success and capacity for profit continued to surprise him. He had set 600,000 francs aside years ago just in case he ever suddenly went out of business or (more probably at the time) he was discovered and had to flee. The money was untouched as his living expenses were taken out of his other earnings.

He now knew that the danger of being apprehended was gone as Javert was perhaps the only official in France who would place recapturing him and sending him back to Toulon above the embarrassment of not believing his confession in the first place and sending the wrong man to hell in his place. Javert, of course, was well and truly convinced and it took a great deal to change his mind.

Now, though the danger had passed, he had Cosette to provide for. He wasn't quite sure what he was doing there, having never been able to provide properly for his own nieces and nephews (a failure that still stung when he thought of it), but he reasoned that it was better to do too much than too little. No one had ever been injured from too much love.

He had been so poor for so long (money was meaningless in Toulon) and then so suddenly rich that sometimes he had trouble really understanding what money was worth to people. Was 600,000 francs enough? For him, certainly, it was more than enough. For Cosette? He had promised to care for her and she would need to live long after he had died. He was not an old man, he did not think, but age was beginning to creep up on him.

Cosette would probably like to get married one day, years and years into the future, though the money would ensure that it was not necessary and so she would need a dowry. The better the dowry the more choice she could have over her husband as she could choose anyone from a man whose family demanded a healthy dowry to someone with not a sous to his name who would need to survive on Cosette's fortune. He would not have her feel that she was not good enough. Never again.

Most of his money he would continue to give to the poor but as business expanded what harm would there be in earmarking a little for Cosette? No harm had befallen anyone when he had been setting aside his emergency fund in the first place.

Valjean had been in Montreuil long enough that he was well-used to being the wealthy philanthropist and mayor M. Madeleine (if he missed being able to use his real name…well, it was not enough to wish to return to prison) but he still did not think that he understood very much of about the day-to-day running of a factory. He had just been a regular worker and grateful beyond measure for being treated as such. Then one day he had gotten lucky and before he knew it he was in charge.

Because he did not feel himself qualified, he rarely interfered with what his foreman and forewoman thought best. This time, however, he did not feel he had a choice. Perhaps it would be easier for Madame Voclain to hear since she had only been enforcing his policies, if perhaps a little overzealously.

He left Cosette with his housekeeper (who, despite her protests, he had insisted on giving a raise since she would at times be trusted with caring for Cosette) and went to go meet with his forewoman. She greeted him, calm and placid as ever, and led him to her office.

"Yes, Monsieur le maire?" she began politely.

"I would like to speak to you of Fantine," Valjean told her. It occurred to him that, with the hundreds of workers Madame Voclain supervised, she might not remember Fantine by name. He hoped that she would at least remember firing her given the horrific consequences of that action, consequences he was sure that such a virtuous woman as Madame Voclain would never have imagined. "She was a worker here fired more than a year ago for having a child."

"Having a child when she had never been married," Madame Voclain corrected. "I know who she is."

Perhaps he shouldn't be surprised. Everyone seemed to know of Fantine when hundreds had showed up at her funeral. He was still not sure what to make of that. It would be nice to believe that they were genuinely touched by Fantine's story but where had they been when she needed them? Perhaps that was ungenerous. If Fantine had not been arrested, where would he himself have been?

"You know what became of her after her dismissal?" The question was almost rhetorical. HE could not see how anyone could know of her and not know that.

Madame Voclain's lips pursed with disapproval. "I do. It is shameful."

"It is shameful," Valjean agreed. "And yet I do not see that the blame lies with poor Fantine?"

Madame V stared uncomprehendingly at him. "She was the one to engage in inappropriate activities that led to a child when she had no husband. She is the one who sought to conceal it and, when she was caught, turned to the streets."

"Cosette is eight now," Valjean said practically. "Any sin you may think that she committed was nine years ago now. Did she deserve to be ruined for that?"

"I did not ask that she be ruined but she could not stay here," Madame Voclain said virtuously. "I gave her fifty francs for her sudden dismissal and it is no one's fault but her own that she did not seek out honest work such as washing or needlepoint."

That, Valjean felt, was not entirely true. Fantine had sewn nonstop all day and, between the forced prison labor driving down prices and Thénardiers greed, it had not been enough. But this good woman, as unforgiving as Javert it seemed, had only been taking her orders from him.

"How as Fantine's child even discovered, hidden away as she was in Montfermeil?" Valjean asked curiously. Fantine had never understood just what had betrayed her.

"It is human nature to be curious," Madame Voclain said delicately, clearly finding the matter distasteful. "Fantine wrote a letter to her child's guardian twice a month. Being illiterate, she paid someone to write it for her and to read the replies. This man was fond of wine and could not hold his tongue when influenced thus. He told those who cared to ask who and where Fantine was writing to and of her child. One woman chose to make the trip and confirmed the child's existence. By the time the news reached my ears, half the town knew. She no longer had the option to conceal it and, in accordance with your instructions on the subject and my own sense of propriety, she was dismissed."

"Why would that woman do this?" Valjean demanded. "What business was it of hers?"

"It was not," Madame Voclain replied calmly. "But people do love their gossip."

"Their idle amusement was not worth an innocent young woman's life!" Valjean cried out.

"I am certain that, if you asked them, they would not accept responsibility for what followed. They would point out that they merely spoke the truth." It was impossible to tell what his forewoman felt about the matter.

"When I set up the moral guidelines for factory workers, I did not intend to kill anyone," Valjean said quietly.

"And you did not," Madame Voclain insisted.

"None of this would have happened if I hadn't had these policies," Valjean argued.

"There was a long chain of events that led to that woman's death," Madame Voclain reminded him. "Many of them were set in motion before she even returned to Montreuil. If any of them had not occurred, maybe she would still be alive. I do not see why your factory regulations, which she was told of when she was hired, is more responsible than she was for putting herself in that situation to begin with."

Valjean nodded, reluctantly accepting that he was not at fault for everything that had befallen her. The fact that she had known the policy before being hired meant nothing, however, as there was only so much work to be had and Cosette was already a growing girl by the time she had arrived back in town. She was a local girl, Valjean believed. Oh, to have run away to seek one's fortunes and returned in disgrace to fall from grace. Fantine had deserved better and darling Cosette would get it.

"I had the best of intentions with those guidelines," Valjean said vaguely, wondering how it could have all gone so wrong. And if his good intentions here caused problems then what was to stop his good intentions elsewhere from doing the same? "I was a worker here once, if you'll remember, and I had seen so much abuse. Men were harassing women who merely wanted to work, workers were coming in drunk, women were openly sleeping with the foreman for preferential treatment…I just wanted to stop all of that."

"You did stop it," Madame Voclain said firmly. "I was a regular worker then, too, and things are much better now than they were before."

"And yet now there are new abuses and one woman that I know for a fact was destroyed by this," Valjean mused. It was so much simpler back before he had the power to ruin someone's life. He had never thought that he could do so so unwittingly! But then, hadn't he long-since had that power? After his sister's husband died he could have easily ruined his sister and nieces and nephew's lives at any time. And one dark night he had. Even if they were still alive, he had left them devastated.

Madame Voclain said nothing.

"I do not seek to undermine you here and I hope that you will not take offence but something that has the power to ruin someone should have some oversight. I do not want the mere presence of a child to be grounds for termination anymore. And in the future, please refer to me anyone who you believe should be dismissed as well as your reasoning for taking this action," Valjean ordered. "I would also like a list of everyone that you can remember dismissing and your reason for the dismissal. I will be asking this of the foreman as well."

A lesser person might have resented this new instruction and taken it to indicate a lack of faith but Madame Voclain was a kind if unforgiving soul and merely nodded her understanding.

It was too late for Fantine but Valjean would not let another person in his town share her fate if he could help it.

Javert was just finishing up his report but, instead of standing and waiting to be dismissed as he usually did, he hesitated.

Madeleine looked consideringly at him. "Was there something else you needed, Javert?"

"No, not exactly," Javert replied. "I was just wondering if you will be in mourning for Fantine. I notice that Cosette has been wearing black since it happened."

Madeleine nodded. "She doesn't quite understand the purpose of wearing black if someone that is important to you dies but she is not interested in what she wears, either. She misses her mother terrible."

Javert wasn't sure just how much she could possibly miss a woman she had only spent a few weeks with and who had been busy dying and being confined to a hospital bed the entire time but he suppose he could not prove his theory one way or the other. There was also no need to antagonize Madeleine who preferred to believe the best of everyone even when it was not supported by reality and who would most certainly take offence at what he saw as a slight against that orphan. Besides, it really did not matter.

"Will you be going into mourning?" Javert asked again.

"I am indeed," Madeleine confirmed. "I think it will be easier for Cosette if we are in mourning together. She has been so worried about being left alone since it happened."

"Is that so," Javert said, not pleased with the answer he had been able to elicit from the mayor.

"Come, Inspector, tell me what it is you really want to know," Madeleine said, looking like he knew exactly what Javert didn't want to say but was not going to make it easy for him.

"Are you a widower now, Monsieur le maire?" Javert asked reluctantly.

"Ah, I see where you would be concerned about that. Such a tragic and devastating loss might impact my ability to execute my duties," Madeleine said, nodding.

"Monsieur?" Javert prompted.

"You may rest easy, Javert, because I am not," Madeleine declared.

Javert blinked. "You are not? That is excellent news."

"Because this means that my ability to do my duty is not compromised," Madeleine said wryly.

"That was one of my concerns," Javert said, nodding. Most people would have stopped there but Javert believed in honesty and so he continued with, "Also, a mayor can't very well marry a prostitute. It would turn the world upside down and be an affront to every decent citizen in not only Montreuil but in all of France!"

"I think you may be exaggerating slightly," Madeleine said placatingly. "All of France cannot possibly know anything about me."

"Perhaps not all," Javert amended. "But do not underestimate how your influence is growing. The tale of your actions at Arras will probably spread and though that will not be a favorable impression, people will want to know who that man who would do such a thing would be and so they will learn of your more sensible qualities as well."

Sensible was, perhaps, not the right word to refer to Madeleine's excessive charity but it was certainly more sensible than pretending to be a convict.

Madeleine smiled at him. "I am sure that people will continue to not concern themselves with me."

And apparently he refused to see how his praise was being sung everywhere in the surrounding area. Javert had certainly not failed to notice before his arrival and especially whenever he had occasion to leave Montreuil.

"Besides," Madeline continued, "not long ago you were under the impression that I was a convict. Surely that would have been more appropriate then?"

Javert carefully did not wince. He did permit himself a shudder, however. "A prostitute and a convict? That is a match made in hell, Monsieur." He should know. "What did change your mind about marrying her?"

"I carefully considered what you said, Inspector," Madeleine replied after a moment.

"You did?" Javert did not know if he was surprised or not. He knew that Madeleine was a good man who did listen to those under his command but, at the same time, he had seemed rather stubbornly intent on that foolish notion when Javert had left that day.

"I still maintain that there is nothing wrong with two people who are in love getting married, as long as they are not already married and are old enough to do so," Madeleine told him, "but you seemed so…uncertain about the match that I wondered if he were not being a little overly hasty. I knew my own mind but I could not know for sure what Fantine felt. And if it had not been for the fact that she was so ill we would not have been considering such a thing so soon into our acquaintance."

'Uncertain' was one for it but it was not the correct one. He had been very certain of what a terrible idea it would have been. As would any sane man, for that matter. He just did not understand how a man so ordinarily sane and practical as Monsieur le maire could be so…naïve, perhaps. Was that it? One day in Toulon would teach him that his worldview was hopelessly unrealistic but the thought of a man like Madeleine so much as looking at Toulon…it would be abhorrent.

"And so you decided not to get married?" Javert prompted.

Madeleine sighed. "We decided to wait and get to know each other a little better first. Unfortunately, she…We did not have time. And even when she knew she was dying, we did not wish to be married simply because of her death. But she would have made any man a fine wife."

Perhaps before she had become a prostitute or had Cosette at all but then she still would have had that moral weakness in her. But it did not matter now that she was safely dead and gone.

"I see."

"I still intend to raise Cosette as my own, however," Madeleine declared firmly, looking very much like he was expecting some sort of an argument. Maybe on another day Javert would have given it to him (though given that the child had no other prospects but to be sent off an another family and hope they weren't like the Thénardiers or to be sent to a convent, both at the mayor's expense, he knew he had no a hope of changing his mind) but he was just too pleased to be able to avoid the scandal to bother. No one would believe that Madeleine was the girl's natural father for if he was then why would she and her mother have been in such a state? It could not be apathy on the part of Madeleine as his recent actions so clearly demonstrated.

If he wanted to waste his time and money on a little girl born in the gutter…Well, at least this might ensure she did not fall into a life of crime like her mother.

"Cosette Madeleine," Javert said slowly. "Interesting."

There was a strange look on Madeleine's face as he repeated, "Cosette Madeleine."

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