Chapter Twelve

Disclaimer: I do not own Les Misérables.

Valjean knew that he was not the best teacher. He was patient, certainly, but inexperienced and untrained. He would like to think that he was not the worst teacher, however, and slowly but surely Cosette's reading abilities improved (so he must be doing something right) until one day it was time for her to go to school.

She clutched tightly at his hand on their walk over. He knew that many of the local children walked to school alone but it was Cosette's first day and she was nervous so he intended to accompany her.

If he was being perfectly honest then he intended to continue to accompany her every day unless he was called out of town for whatever reason (he tried to ignore the growing urge to seek out Champmathieu). He was sure that at some point she would grow enough that it would be silly to walk her to school but he couldn't imagine it. There was also the possibility that, as painfully grateful as Cosette was to have him here right now, one day she might be embarrassed to have him take her. He did not think – or rather, he hoped it would not be – that it would be because she was ashamed of him but that she was embarrassed at the thought that being accompanied to school when others her age were not would make her look like a child.

But for now she looked like she might just stand where she was forever if not outright running back home and hiding behind Madame Martin if he was not beside her and he took heart in that. Was it strange to feel a pang of loss for the present since it would inevitably be lost, years and years for now? He found it inexplicable and yet there it was.

"Will you promise that you will still help me read?" Cosette asked him again. It was sweet how she would believe anything he said as long as he promised. He was not sure that he would not end up letting her down someday but he resolved to do his best not to.

Whether or not he would still find the time to work with her on her reading had been a big concern of hers ever since she had become worried that she would not be good enough at reading by the time that school started. He had explained that not everyone was going to know how to read at all since she would not be the only new student but she still fretted.

He had never attended school himself and, though he had spent a decent amount of money improving the schooling here and in better paying the teachers, he did not really know all that much about it. The children would have to be broken up into groups based on how long they had been in school or how much they knew or something like that. Would they stay in the same groups for all of their subjects or would someone who was good at reading but bad at writing be in two different groups? What would the other students do while another group was being instructed? It occurred to him that there was a great deal about schooling that he did not know but perhaps should. It had never really seemed important before Cosette but he was finding that that was true with a lot of things.

He had known that some things would change, certainly, with the addition of a new person into his life – especially someone who could not be kept at arm's length like a daughter – but he had rather underestimated how much it would change.

"Of course I will," Valjean assured her, wondering if Cosette would need to go with the other new students (some of whom would be younger than she) or if there was some sort of test to see which group she belonged in.

It may just be a father's pride when he thought that she was an exceptionally bright child (really, what did he know of such things?) but he could say with complete objectivity that Cosette was a hard worker. She genuinely wanted to learn and it made him glad that she was going to take full advantage of this opportunity denied to so many. It was his goal that one day no one in Montreuil who wanted to learn would be rebuffed but though he had made great strides towards this it was not yet a reality.

"And you're sure I'll make friends?" Cosette pressed.

How could he promise such a thing? He hoped that she would, certainly, and remembered distantly that most children had little trouble making friends. Those who were too different did not, always. There was a boy in his village who was missing a finger but had not seemed to have lost it in an accident or something, just never had it, and he had been teased most mercilessly. Cosette being the child of a woman widely known to have fallen to prostitution as well as the fact that she had no experience with children before, being treated as a slave in Montfermeil, did make her different but he rather hoped that that would not be enough to cause them to ostracize her. Her being the child of the mayor was another difference but not one that he thought would harm her. Perhaps it would even be enough to make up for the others.

He rather felt that girls that age were kinder than boys so Cosette attending a school just for girls should make things easier.

Cosette was still looking worriedly at him.

"You will make lots of friends," he said at last. "Just smile and be friendly and you will be fine."

A small smile crept over her face then.

"Exactly like that," Valjean said encouragingly.

They reached the school and walked past the children playing outside. Cosette returned their curious stares with one of her own and drew a little closer to him. The schoolmaster was inside.

He had heard that it was difficult to get a good teacher who knew more than what he was teaching the students but, strangely, he had never had this problem. Perhaps good teachers had been attracted to Montreuil rather than other places by the extra salary he ensured that they received but if they were going to be teaching anyway and were good for the children then what was the harm in being rewarded for it? It was why he had started giving them a salary more than twice what they were given by the government in addition to their official pay in the first place.

"Monsieur le Maire!" Durand exclaimed, rising at once to greet them.

Valjean nodded at him. "Monsieur Durand."

"I had heard that your daughter would be beginning school today," Durand said, peering down at Cosette. "This is she?"

Valjean nodded again. "I do hope that she will have a good experience here."

"Oh, I'm sure she'll fit right in," Durand told him. "We are expecting quite a few new girls today and the older girls always love it when there's some fresh face to liven the place up."

"Will you be alright here if I go?" Valjean asked Cosette seriously. He had work that he really should be doing but there would be time for that later, after he made sure that Cosette would be fine. "Or would you like me to stay for awhile?"

Cosette looked very tempted to ask him to stay. Finally, she said, "I will be fine, I think."

"I'm glad to hear it," Durand told her. "Just go right outside and play with the other girls and then, in a few minutes, I'll call the class in and we can begin."

Valjean let Cosette walk out ahead of him.

"I will make sure that she is well-looked after, Monsieur," Durand promised. He would likely not be so eager to look out for one little girl if her father were not the man paying him most of his salary but since it was what it was he merely nodded and thanked him.

Valjean kept his distance as he left, not wanting to interfere, and watched as Cosette hesitantly approached two friendly-looking girls who were picking blades of grass. Once he saw that they seemed to welcome her into their group, he left. What he really wanted to do was stay and watch but he knew that if he gave into that temptation then he could very well be waiting out there all day.

He could not take the time to pick Cosette up from school (though he did send someone to bring her home) but he make sure to leave a little early so that he could be there sooner for Cosette and to find out how her first day had gone.

Cosette was chattering excitedly to Madame Martin as she helped prepare dinner again (this time she was helping to crack some eggs) but she broke off and ran to him. When she flung her arms around him, he felt a little wetness on his back and concluded that she must have had some of the egg on her hands when she hugged him. When she drew back, he saw that she was correct.

Madame Martin also noticed this and looked like she wanted to say something but would defer to how he wished to handle it. Well, what was there to handle? People always made messes when they were first learning to do things and children naturally made more messes than adults. She had meant no harm, quite the opposite, and it was nothing that a proper washing would not take care of.

"Perhaps you might want to wash up and be careful not to touch anything else until you do," he suggested mildly.

Cosette looked puzzled until she glanced down at her hands and then she flushed. "I got egg all over you!"

"It's not very much," Valjean was quick to reassure her.

Cosette still looked a little upset but just nodded and hurried off to do just that.

"My apologies, Monsieur," Madame Martin said, bowing her head.

"She is cooking and eggs can be very messy," Valjean said simply.

"She is not applying enough force and, while the eggshell does not fall into the food to need to be picked out, she only manages to produce a small crack in the egg so it gets all over her fingers and she must pour the yolk into the bowl," Madame Martin explained. "She will get better."

"I leave it in your capable hands," Valjean told her before going to locate his daughter.

She was inspecting her wet hands very carefully before she finally seemed satisfied and dried them on the towel.

When she caught him looking, she said, "I wanted to make sure I got it all off."

"That's very thoughtful of you, Cosette," Valjean replied, smiling. "Washing your hands properly is always a good skill to have."

Even now, with everything Valjean was doing to get her more accustomed to praise, it took so very little to make her light up like that. It did his heart good but it also concerned him a little. Did this mean that there were still problems that had to be address? Was this just a character trait? If it was then what might it mean one day when a boy said nice things to her?

But those were worries for another day.

For now, Cosette was smiling sunnily at him and it brightened the room.

Valjean took a seat in his chair and gestured for Cosette to come sit on his lap.

She willingly obliged and Valjean absently smoothed her hair back as he asked, "So how was your first day of school?"

"It was really nice!" Cosette said happily. "Monsieur Durand said that I knew a lot for not having gone to school before."

"You're very smart, Cosette," Valjean told her, smiling as well.

"Smart or not you helped," Cosette said reasonably. "So thank you!"

"You've already thanked me quite a few times," Valjean said, amused. "You thank me every time we sit down to work on your reading."

"You can never say thank you too many times," Cosette informed him importantly.

"No, I suppose not," Valjean agreed, chuckling.

"I didn't get put with the other new kids," Cosette continued. "I was bigger than them anyway. They were nice but I like the new people I'm with, too."

"That's very good."

"There was one thing that was a little strange, though," Cosette said slowly, biting her lower lip.

"And what was that?" he asked her, shifting his weight a little to get more comfortable.

"Monsieur Durand was really nice and always made sure that I knew what was going on but…" Cosette trailed off.

"But what?" Valjean prompted patiently. He hoped that it would not be a serious problem although since Cosette had prefaced her statement with compliments, he rather doubted that it would be.

"But he kept calling me 'Euphrasie'," Cosette said, wrinkling her nose.

Valjean laughed at that and lightly tapped Cosette on the nose with his index finger. "Is that all? Your name is Euphrasie, my child."

"I guess, a little," Cosette said reluctantly. "But nobody ever calls me that. I don't think anyone has ever called me that except for Monsieur Durand. I did not even know that that was my name until I saw Mama again."

Valjean automatically tensed at that, keeping an eye out for any sign of sorrow or distress at the mention of Fantine, however casual it was. Fantine's child seemed perfectly content, however. Perhaps enough time had passed that the wounds were starting to heal. She certainly cried less, these days, but he had not wanted to assume. As glad as he was that Cosette was evidently feeling better, he did worry, a little, that this might be the beginning of forgetting Fantine.

Well, he would just have to make sure that that didn't happen.

"Do you not like being called 'Euphrasie'?" he asked her.

Cosette frowned. "I never really thought about it. It's a pretty name but…it's not my name. And you can say that it is but I don't think of me when I think 'Euphrasie.' I think of me when I think 'Cosette.'"

Valjean nodded knowingly. "You're out of practice being called Euphrasie, if you were ever in practice." He knew a little of what that was like. He had had the biggest shock of his life when Javert had flung the words 'Jean Valjean' at him months ago, only to tell him that he was not, in fact, there to accuse him after all. It had been years since somebody had actually called him by name. Perhaps the bishop had been the last one to do so. That would be fitting, he thought.

"I tried to tell him that I'm Cosette but he didn't believe me," Cosette continued, a little unhappily. "He said that the records said that my name was Euphrasie and you could not get Cosette from Euphrasie and I shouldn't cause trouble."

"I can see where he's coming from," Valjean began.

Cosette's face fell and Valjean briefly squeezed her hand.

"People have to go by their names, you understand. Imagine that there was a little girl named Catherine and Catherine did not want to be called that. Instead she wanted to be called…" he trailed off and looked meaningfully at Cosette.

"Napoleon!" Cosette cried, giggling.

Valjean smiled at that. "Instead Catherine wanted to be called Napoleon. Should Monsieur Durand call her Napoleon?"

Cosette shook her head.

"But in this case, it's different. Here you're not just making up a name but trying to tell him what you are really called," Valjean concluded. "I shall explain it when I walk you to school tomorrow."

"Thank you, Papa," Cosette said charmingly, leaning back against him. "I knew that you would fix it!"

Valjean was touched by this vote of confidence and pleased that he was managing not to disappoint this child who now depended on him. "Did you make any friends?"

Cosette nodded excitedly. "I did! All of the girls were really nice but I like Lucie and Daphné and Manon the best. They're in my group and we had lunch together and we picked flowers and put them in our hair."

"I'm sure you looked lovely," Valjean said, easily imagining Cosette running and laughing with the other girls and sticking flowers in her hair.

"I don't know about that but the other girls looked really pretty so I must have looked nice, too," Cosette said, looking down. Cosette was still not a pretty child but she was growing closer every day. It made no difference to him, of course, but he would not like to see Cosette hurt.

"What else did you do?" he asked her.

"They were really impressed that I already knew how to read even though I had never gone to school before," Cosette continued eagerly. "They kept asking me why I hadn't gone and I didn't know what to tell them so I just said that there wasn't a school where I lived before."

On the one hand, he didn't want Cosette to have to talk about her time in Montfermeil with the Thénardiers. On the other, he did not want her to get into the habit of lying. He knew full well just how impossible a habit it could be to break. "Was there a school in Montfermeil?"

Cosette tilted her head back, thinking. At last she said, "I do not know. It would not have mattered if there was. Unless they were paid for me to go, I would not have gone."

Valjean gave her a quick hug and then asked her another question about her friends.

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