Chapter Fourteen

Javert had sent men out to call off the search and to bring Madeleine back but until the mayor arrived he had to keep an eye Cosette so that she did not wander off again and set off another manhunt. He was tempted to have someone else watch her but they all had their own duties that he could not expect them to have to set aside so he would not have to wait a few more minutes with her.

He kept an eye on Cosette while he went back to his paperwork.

It was quiet for a few minutes before Cosette spoke up. "How did you know my mother?"

"What?" Javert asked distractedly.

"How did you know my mother?" Cosette repeated patiently.

"Why don't you ask your father that?" Javert suggested, not looking forward to starting yet another discussion.

"I did," Cosette told him. "He said that my mother used to work in his factory and then she got sick and so he visited her."

That was technically true though it left out a lot of rather important details such as the fact that Fantine had been fired and become a prostitute who Madeline discovered blamed him for the way her life had turned out and so Madeleine took it upon himself to rescue her from justice and set her up in the hospital like some sort of a countess.

"I met your mother when I was trying to arrest her," Javert explained.

Cosette's brow furrowed and she looked quite confused. "I don't understand."

"What is not to understand?" Javert asked rhetorically. "You know what being under arrest is, surely."

Cosette nodded. "I do. But you said that you arrest bad guys and my mother was not a bad guy."

"I…" Javert trailed off, uncertain of what to say. He had no intention of lying to her, of course, but he wasn't sure how to phrase the truth. 'Bad guy' was such a simplistic term and perhaps that was what he should start with. "I arrest people who break the law. I believe that if someone is willing to break the law then that means that there is something wrong with them and that they will always be the kind of person who are willing to break the law. Even if they only broke the law once and never broke it again for the rest of their life, there is something in them that would cause them to break the law if they had been in a situation where honest men would choose not to. That is why law-breakers are so dangerous to society and must be appropriately dealt with. Does that make sense?"

It clearly did not but Cosette nodded anyway. "Yes."

Well, it wasn't like he knew how to simplify that any further and so he let it go. "Your mother broke the law and might have broken the law in the past or would break it in the future had she lived. She was the kind of person who was willing to break the law and so she needed to be punished."

Cosette was looking frightfully unhappy. "But what did she do?"

"There was a man who was saying mean things to her and who threw snow down her dress," Javert informed her. "Now this is not nice behavior and people really should refrain from doing it but it was not illegal. What was illegal was how she responded. She scratched him hard enough to draw blood."

"That's not fair!" Cosette complained. "She only did it because he was being so mean and scratching someone's not really that bad. I got scratched all the time before and it was better than being kicked or punched or sent outside with no shoes!"

Once again, Javert directed a dark thought towards the Thénardiers for the injustice that they had visited upon this child whose mother had paid for better care to be taken of. "She was only to receive six months which, you should remember from Valjean's tale, was really not all that much. And she would have gotten in off the streets so it may have even benefited her."

"Why would she be on the streets?" Cosette asked, puzzled.

Did Fantine have accommodation before her near-arrest? He did not even know. "She was very badly off after being fired."

Cosette's eyes widened. "And she still had to send money so the Thénardiers wouldn't send me out into the cold. Is it my fault she got sick?"

That was a stupid question. Without Cosette Fantine would never have been fired and fallen into prostitution but that was the result of Fantine's own poor choices in having a child without being properly married first (or at least becoming the mistress of a man who would take care of her and the child if she couldn't even manage matrimony).

"No and regardless of what your father might think, it wasn't his fault, either," Javert said curtly.

Cosette tilted her head. "Why would it be his fault?"

"It wouldn't, weren't you listening?" Javert asked a bit impatiently. "He just felt guilty because his forewoman fired your mother because your father wants his employees to have good morals and the forewoman did not think your mother had good morals. He had no idea that your mother even existed and the minute he found out he wouldn't let me arrest her and took her to the hospital so he did far more than he was obligated to even if it had been his fault. Which it wasn't."

Cosette nodded slowly. "Does Papa blame himself for things that are not his fault a lot?"

"I would imagine so," Javert told her. He was not entirely sure but if the Fantine situation was any indication then it seemed likely.

"I still don't think she should have gotten in trouble when the man who threw snow down her dress didn't," Cosette announced.

"There are certain things that you cannot say unless you want to get in trouble with the law, usually words talking about bringing down the government," Javert told her slowly. "But aside from that words do not do physical damage and so it is up to law-abiding citizens to ignore any words that they don't like. And throwing snow down her dress may have made her colder but it really is harmless. But we cannot have people attacking each other in the streets. That is the fastest way to the death of law and order and the birth of chaos."

Cosette was quiet for a long moment. "I'm glad Papa stopped you from arresting her."

Javert snorted. "That does not surprise me."

Madeleine burst through the door then, looking as close to panicked as Javert had ever seen him.

"Cosette!" he cried out, rushing to her side.

Cosette smiled sweetly at him and gave him a big hug. "I'm sorry I worried you, Papa."

Madeleine bent down and smoothed her hair back. "Oh, Cosette, you cannot just run off like that without telling anybody where you are!"

She looked down. "I know, I'm sorry. I didn't think. School got out early and nobody was there to get me and I didn't want to bother anybody and I always went out by myself before."

"Well now you have people that worry about you and want to make sure that you're safe," Madeleine told her.

Cosette nodded. "I promise I won't do something like this again."

Madeleine managed to tear his eyes away from his daughter long enough to turn to Javert. "Javert, I wanted to thank you for what you did. If you had not found her then I do not know what might have happened or, if nothing did, how long I would have had to worry."

"It was my duty."

Madeleine smiled at that. "So you have said. Come, Cosette, let's leave the good Inspector to his work."

Mercifully, they left then and Javert was able to get back to his paperwork.

During dinner that night, Valjean asked Cosette if she had enjoyed spending time with Javert while waiting for him to come and get her.

Cosette frowned. "I don't know."

"What do you mean?" Valjean asked. It seemed to him that it should be a pretty easy question to answer assuming that one was not trying to hide the fact that he was formerly a convict. Since the trial, he had noticed that he had liked Javert far more than he had before. Oh, he had never avoided the man before or given any sign that he wished to avoid him (or so he hoped) but the uneasiness had been present and now it was gone.

"I learned a lot," Cosette told him. "He doesn't not tell you things because you're a child. But I don't like some of the things he says."

"Like what?" Valjean asked, suddenly on guard. What exactly had Javert been telling Cosette? She did not look upset but that did not necessarily mean anything.

"He told me that you saved my mother when he wanted to arrest her for scratching a man that who was being really mean to her," Cosette told him. "Thank you for saving my mother."

Valjean had two rather disparate reactions to this simple statement. The first was anger-tinged fear that Javert would have told Cosette something like that when she really had no need to know of this, perhaps ever, and certainly not at her age. The second was guilt because, though he had done his best from that moment on, it was simply too late to save her and he had already been the one to condemn her in the first place.

"I…you're welcome," Valjean said awkwardly in lieu of having to explain to Cosette just what he had done to her mother. "What exactly did Javert say? Did he tell you why that man was harassing your mother?"

Cosette thought about it and shook her head. "He did say that she was poor and spent a lot of time outside on the street where she got sick."

Valjean felt his heart calm. It would appear that Javert had the sense not to tell Cosette that her mother had been a prostitute after all.

"He says that everyone he arrests are bad guys," Cosette continued. "Or at least will always break the law. I don't know, it got confusing at that part."

"Javert is a good man," Valjean replied. "But he does not believe in mercy or second chances."

"But God believes in second chances," Cosette protested. "He sent his only son to die for our sins to give everyone a second chance."

"That is true," Valjean agreed. "In his line of work…the law is often very harsh so it does not matter that he is not a man of mercy since he is a man of justice. If you break the law then he will punish you to the full extent of the law but not a centimeter over the line. Not everyone is so…correct."

"I guess that's good," Cosette said thoughtfully. "It's not his fault that the law's so mean."

"It is not, indeed. But why do you say that the law is mean?" Valjean asked.

"I asked him to tell me about a criminal and he did and the story was sad. He did not think it was sad but it was," Cosette answered.

Javert actually told her about a criminal? Of course he did. Valjean would hardly call himself an expert on children, having only had Cosette for a few months and his previous extensive experience with children was nearly thirty years ago, but that seemed like one of those obvious things you did not talk to children about. And especially not girl children!

"What did he say?" Valjean asked cautiously.

"He told me about a man named Jean Valjean."

He had not expected to hear that name from her then or ever. He was fully prepared to never hear that name again unless he did decide to go and see Champmathieu. It was to his credit, he thought, that he only nearly choked. If Javert was there he could have passed off his reaction (possibly without actually having to say anything as Javert would make his assumptions) as being about the fact that Javert had told her about the man Madeleine had been mistaken for. Cosette had no idea about that fiasco (well, she hadn't before today. Who knew what else Javert had told her?) and so she just looked at him in concern.

"I'm fine, Cosette," he assured her. "I just should have chewed more before trying to swallow."

Cosette nodded like that made perfect sense to her.

"Why don't you tell me what he said?" Valjean invited hesitantly.

He was far from certain that he wanted to know what Javert had to say about him (though it was possibly his only opportunity to find out as he really had no reason asking about the matter after so long and would probably convince Javert that he was holding a grudge about the accusation or something. He did not always understand what would upset Javert and did not want to risk it) and he was even less certain he wanted to hear Cosette's own thoughts. Javert probably believed that he was completely irredeemable and deserved to rot in prison for breaking his ban as mercy was not part of his character and he had looked at Valjean doing his good works for this town and was still willing to denounce him.

Cosette, though…No matter how Cosette felt about Jean Valjean the convict she would never look at the actual Valjean with any emotion she had reserved for the convict since she would never know the truth about him. Champmathieu's damnation meant that he no longer had the right to risk his identity or burden someone with the knowledge. He could not save that man and so he could not make his agony worth nothing. Valjean had gone through life accepting that virtually everyone (some people, such as Sister Simplice, he found sufficiently Bishop-like to perhaps see past his old sins) would hate him if they knew the truth ever since he had begun concealing the truth behind the mask of Madeleine to escape the hatred of virtually everyone he met. It was one thing to know that one would be hated and another to hear it stated so plain. And what was the hate of a stranger compared to the hatred or fear of Cosette? He did not know how he would be able to live with himself if she reacted the way that everyone always reacted. It would not be her fault, of course, and she would be perfectly right to draw back from his sins but it would kill him nonetheless.

"He told me that he stole a loaf of bread but did it stupidly and got caught and then tried to run stupidly four times and so spent nineteen years in the worst place ever," Cosette explained.

Valjean had not expected to feel vaguely offended by her reply (not at her but at what she was repeating from Javert) but he did. "Stupid? Did he say how it was stupid?"

Cosette nodded. "He punched the glass with his fist so he was bleeding and threw the loaf away and only took one. And after the first escape he kept trying even though it never worked."

Well, he had always known that his attempts to escape (after the first one. Who could fault him for the first try for freedom even if it was so close to the end of his sentence?) had been more instinctual than rational but to call him stupid for the crime that had destroyed his life and the lives of his family? That hardly seemed fair. And it would not have mattered if he had used a rock or took ten loaves and kept all of them because he had still been caught and none of the aspects that Javert had taken issue with had led to his capture.

He looked encouragingly at Cosette.

"He said that men who break the law once will always have it in them to break the law and so are really dangerous and that the convicts at Toulon all make each other worse so they're even more bad when they come out," she continued.

It had honestly surprised him that Javert had described Toulon as being so terrible to Cosette. He rather doubted that he had actually said that it was the worst place ever but perhaps he was trying to instill fear of the place in her, despite the fact that as a woman she would never set foot in there. And since the prisoners were there to be punished, Javert might even see the terrible conditions as an asset. He probably did, come to think of it.

It wasn't that Valjean could not understand and even agree with, a little, the argument that if someone has broken the law once they are more likely than someone who has never broken the law to break the law in the future. Some people are willing to break the law if circumstances turn bleak enough (and others did not need a good excuse) and others were not. A man who had let desperation turn him to crime once might do it again. A man who had not turned to crime might do so in the future or he might be the type to rather starve and keep his soul than give in to temptation. It did not justify the parole system that had made it impossible for him to become a good person and stay Jean Valjean and he knew that those who made that argument often used it to do just that.

"I hardly think it's just the convicts though that might be part of it," Valjean said finally. "As Javert said, Toulon is a terrible place and you cannot stay the same in such an environment. When you're in a bad situation, you do what you can to survive."

Cosette bit her lip and then nodded.

And now he was reminding her of her own past, wasn't he?

"Maybe we should talk about something else," he suggested.

But Cosette shook her head. "I didn't think it was fair that that poor man did one thing wrong and it led to his whole life being bad after that. And then he had to run away once he got out and now he's back in Toulon forever. It's just so sad."

Valjean's heart was suddenly so full that he could not speak.

"Papa?" Cosette asked curiously, tilting her head. "Are you alright?"

Valjean swallowed convulsively and then smiled at her so widely it almost hurt. "Oh yes, my dear child. I am perfectly wonderful."

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