Chapter Eleven
Disclaimer: I do not own Les Misérables.
When Valjean came home that evening, he saw Cosette watching intently and trying to help as the portress was making dinner. He watched as Madame Martin had Cosette help mix something in a bowl.
He watched silently for a moment, a smile on his lips, wishing idly that Cosette could have a mother figure in her life. She needed a father, yes, but weren't mothers even more important for young girls? Cosette had had the best mother imaginable but now she was dead and Cosette was far from grown. If only the past was not what it was (wasn't he always thinking that?) and he could marry a woman to be a mother for Cosette without the guilt that came from lying or the unacceptable risk of being denounced and abandoning Cosette like he'd abandoned his own sister's children all those years before.
At least he had a portress. He would need to remember to always have a good female servant around for anything that Cosette might need and to try and keep servants who did their job well around for as long as possible so as not to separate Cosette from someone she might grow to care for.
Cosette chanced to glance up and when she saw him her face broke into a huge smile. She gave the bowl one final stir before handing the spoon off to Madame Martin and rushing over to greet him.
Valjean found being greeted by a hug whenever he returned to be quite agreeable and filled him with a warmth that was even stronger than he felt the rest of the time that he spent with Cosette. He wondered if he had ever had that before. If he did then he could not recall it so he supposed that it did not matter. It would have been decades regardless.
"I helped make dinner!" Cosette announced proudly.
Valjean chuckled and ruffled her hair. "I see that you did. How about you go upstairs and wash up and then you can tell me what you did today."
Cosette nodded but then hesitated. "Do you need any more help with anything, Madame Martin?"
The older woman shook her head. "Thank you, dear, but I'm almost done."
Cosette ran upstairs then.
"Thank you for indulging Cosette," Valjean said to Madame Martin once Cosette had gone. "I'm sure that she would have slowed you down."
"Do not worry, Monsieur," Madame Martin assured him. "That child is an absolute angel."
Valjean smiled, always pleased to hear other people appreciating Cosette. She had had far too little appreciation from the Thénardiers and even the ever-constant and limitless love of her mother had been too far away for Cosette to feel.
"And a girl must learn to cook from somewhere," Madame Martin reasoned. "She is already improving a lot."
Valjean tilted his head. "Oh? Then this is not a one-time thing?"
Madame Martine suddenly seemed embarrassed and lowered her eyes. Valjean hated it whenever he provoked that response in people. It was fortunately not often but he did not always understand why it happened. He had noticed that the higher he rose in society the more often this occured.
Thankfully, his portress chose to inform him of why she would not meet his eyes. "Perhaps I should have asked before letting her help. She was just so excited and had nothing else to do while waiting for you to return that I…"
When it became clear that she was not going to go on, Valjean replied, "I am not upset, Madame. I was merely surprised because usually when I return home dinner is already prepared and so I do have the opportunity to see Cosette at work."
Madame Martine frowned. "I had noticed that. Did I fall behind? My apologizes, Monsieur Madeleine."
Valjean shook his head. "No, not at all. Today I merely finished my work a little early and so have arrived before my usual time. I appreciate you taking the time to occupy Cosette and teach her something but can such a small child really be useful? I do not wish for her to be a burden to you."
"Oh, she isn't!" Madame Martin hurried to assure him. "It reminds me of teaching my girls, to be honest. Children helping may take a little extra time but that's true no matter what age they are and she has to learn from somewhere."
"That is true," Valjean reasoned. "I have never learned to cook myself and would have no idea of how to begin teaching Cosette so I thank you for your efforts."
Madame Martin's ears turned a delicate shade of pink. "Oh, thank you, Monsieur. It is no trouble, as I said. Little Cosette is an excellent student and I make sure not to let her near knives or the stove at her age."
That had not even occurred to him as a potential problem and, now that it had, he was grateful that it had been addressed so quickly.
He exchanged a few more pleasantries with his portress before going upstairs to see Cosette.
She was lying down next to the bookcase and carefully examining one of his books. As he got closer, his heart swelled to realize that she had chosen the Bible though of course she could not read it. Perhaps she had recognized it, though, when he had read from it.
When she heard him come in, she quickly shut the book and put it back in its place, looking like she did not know whether she was allowed to have done that or not.
"It is alright, Cosette," Valjean assured her, going to sit down in his chair. "You may look at whichever of my books you want whenever I am not reading them myself as long as you promise to be careful."
Cosette nodded, looking so serious that it made him want to laugh. He refrained, however, as there was little a child disliked more than being laughed at.
It occurred to him that, aside from the Bible which he read every night before going to bed and read to Cosette when they returned from Mass on Sunday, he had not done much reading these past few weeks. He had just not had time. But while he did miss spending time with his safe and solitary friends, he could not regret this bright and lively addition to his life that God has seen fit to send him. He wished that this change had come from less tragic circumstances but that was not entirely God's doing and he knew that any child who was alone was some form of tragic circumstance and he could not bring a child into his life and all the – admittedly lessoned – risks associated with it unless they were alone and desperate.
He wondered if anyone had been kind to his own nieces and nephews when they had not accompanied his sister to Paris and been alone and desperate. Assuming that they had survived the five years since his arrest by that point…It did no good to dwell on it. Somehow, however, no matter how many times he told himself this, seeing Cosette always brought back those old memories and worries that would do nobody any good and that he could never even share. Most people could not hear of it. Bamatabois would not care. He could not burden a child like that, especially one he had already wronged as much as Gervais who, despite the years and his fierce independence, was still very much a child.
Just the same, while he knew that no good would come of thinking of them and most of his memories of them had faded away over the years, lost somewhere among the lashes and the chains, he did not want to allow what little remained to disappear as well.
He was still looking for them, though he had long since given up the notion of actually finding them, and it really did feel like they had just blown away in the wind. He had failed them enough as it was (had always been failing them, living on the edge of starvation at the best of times) and would not do them the further disservice of not remembering what he could.
Valjean blinked and came back to himself as Cosette climbed onto his lap. She was good at bringing him back to the present when he got lost in the memories of time gone by.
"I want to learn how to read," she announced.
"Oh?"
Cosette nodded seriously. "I have been thinking about it and I want to learn. I like playing with Catherine and helping Madame Martin but I think books might help, too, when I'm waiting for you."
Valjean nodded. Naturally it had always been the plan, ever since he knew of Cosette's existence, that she would learn how to read even before he had known that she would be given over to his keeping. He was just glad that Cosette was so eager for the knowledge. "Well of course you shall have to learn how to read! You shall need to write, as well."
Cosette looked expectantly at him and he was not quite sure what it was that she was looking to hear.
"School should be starting up again soon and then you can start going to class," Valjean told her. "You will be able to meet boys and girls your own age and make friends."
"Friends," Cosette said slowly, unhappily. "You mean with people like Zelma and Ponine?"
Valjean had no idea what a 'Zelma' or a 'Ponine' was. "I do not think so, my child. Who are Zelma and Ponine?"
Cosette frowned and snuggled against him. "They're Madame Thénardiers little ladies. They did not like me. They used to tell my mist…Madame Thénardier when I touched their doll and then she would beat me."
Valjean closed his eyes and ran a soothing hand over Cosette's arm. He did not understand how people could be like that. Even at his lowest, even when he had robbed a bishop who had tried to save him and a child who had done nothing, he would never have attacked a child like that. But she was gone from there now.
The only concern was the other children. He could not take them as well, they already had a mother and a father. They were cruel to Cosette as well and he would not subject her back to that. Perhaps it was not their fault that they learned the lessons of their elders and they could be taught differently in time but in the meantime it would just cause more pain for this darling child that had seen more than her fair share of suffering and he would nont stand for them to mistreat her while learning to be better. He did worry at what being raised by such monsters, even monsters that seemed to love them and treat them well, would do to children born innocent. They would not have an easy time growing up to not be monsters themselves.
But they had parents and he could not take them from them and could not raise every child in France.
"Listen very carefully to me, Cosette," Valjean said, quietly but intensely, shifting the girl on his lap so that she was face-to-face with him. "I cannot change what happened in the past but I will never let anyone hurt you like that again."
He wanted to tell her that he would never allow her to be hurt again as long as he was living but he could not. Pain was a natural part of life. Not the pain of Toulon, the pain of the Thénardiers, the pain of abandonment, the pain of dying but little things. She would have the pain of someone who was her friend deciding that she didn't like her anymore. She would have the pain of a boy she liked not liking her back. She would have the pain of looking in the mirror and not liking what she saw. She would have the pain of never having her mother again though that was not such a little thing.
But he would not let her face the sort of pain she had known before, the sort of pain that had once been inescapable for him.
It took him a moment to realize that little Cosette was trembling and for a moment he feared that he had said the wrong thing. Sometimes he felt so bad at this. What had he once said to the other children, his sister's children? He did not speak to them much, he thought, too busy resenting his situation (oh to think that later he would long for that same thing he had been so desperate to escape!) and too tired from working too hard for too little and taking another step towards ruination and starvation. And even if he had, it was very nearly thirty years ago.
Then she said, "Do you promise?"
He kissed her gently on the hand and she did not pull away as she usually did. "I promise."
She smiled then, brightly, and he marveled in the resiliency of children. Happiness truly was their natural state, as he had enjoyed helping Cosette to come to discover.
"Friends, Cosette, are nothing like that," Valjean assured her though what did he know of friends? When had he last had one? When had he last had the time or the daring? Perhaps he could risk it now. Those were thoughts for another time. "Friends are people who are nice to you and play with you and you like being around."
Cosette considered that. "Friends are like you then, Papa?"
Valjean smiled at that. "Yes, perhaps a little. But I am your father and friends tend to be people that are not your family that you like. And when you are a child your friends tend to be other children."
And yet she still hesitated. "The only other children that I ever knew were Ponine and Zelma. There was the baby, too, but I didn't see him very much."
"The other children will not be like that," Valjean told her. "They will not be allowed to be like that."
"Alright," Cosette said but it was clear that she was having a difficult time believing him.
"You are a wonderful little girl and the other children will be very lucky to have the chance to be your friend," Valjean pressed.
Cosette looked a little more confident at this and Valjean resolved to keep telling her that every day until he could prove it to her.
"But school doesn't start right away, you said," Cosette reminded him.
"Hm? Oh, no, not just yet," he confirmed.
"I don't want to wait to learn to read," Cosette said shyly, looking a little worried at her own insistence.
Valjean could never deny Cosette anything and certainly not something as innocent and important as learning how to read.
"I've never taught anyone how to read before," he mused. He was not entirely sure how. He himself had learned to read around fifteen years ago but he had not been paying attention to how that was done, too concerned was he with learning as much as he could as fast as he could so that he could try and inflict just a fraction of what had been done to him onto an unsuspecting and largely innocent world. He did not like to think of it but he would have to if he wanted to have any sort of idea of how to teach a child.
It amused him and made him smile to think that he had only bothered to learn to read in the first place because he had wanted to inflict pain and yet all he had ever done with the knowledge was create a business to help the entire community and become mayor to better the lives of those around him and now he was going to be teaching a child to read. What purer and nobler thing was there to do with literacy?
Cosette looked up at him hopefully. "Before? Does that mean that you will teach me?"
Fantine had never known how to read. That was one of the reasons that her life had been ruined. If she had known how to read then she would have been able to write her own letters to the Thénardiers and those townspeople who had sought only to indulge their own curiosity and had surely had no malicious intent would not have been able to find out about Cosette and unwittingly send Fantine to her grave. Fantine never complained of her own fate, not as long as he had known her. All she had wanted, no matter how far she had to fall to achieve it, was for Cosette to have better. It would not be hard to give Cosette a better life than Fantine given what desperation she had had to turn to at the end but that was not enough. She deserved a good life, a proper one, not merely one that was better.
And then his family had never known how to read and it had only made their lives more difficult. It had been that he had never even fully understood the difficulty that it was to not be able to read until suddenly that difficulty was removed.
The school that he had built was a good school and he had full faith in it. But suddenly he knew that he did not want to make Cosette wait one minute longer to receive this precious gift.
He seemed to recall that the first thing to do was to write out the alphabet and make her understand that certain letters corresponded to certain sounds.
"I will teach you," Valjean decided, standing up. "Right after dinner we will get started."
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