Chapter Seventeen

Valjean was leaving Sunday Mass when a well-dressed women strolled up to him with a wide smile. She was trailing a child about Cosette's age with her. "Monsieur le Maire! How lovely to see you."

Valjean smiled automatically and nodded his head.

"We have never been properly introduced but of course we all feel like we know you since you are our beloved mayor," the woman continued. "My name is Christine Monceaux and this is my daughter, Adele."

Adele smiled shyly. "Hello."

Cosette glanced up at him before smiling back. "I am Cosette."

"Do you think that it would be alright if Adele and Cosette played while we talk?" Madame Monceaux asked.

Valjean hesitated. He would not be rude with this woman but he did not wish to engage in idle conversation with her and so he would prefer to be able to leave as quickly as politeness dictated. If Cosette were off playing with another child then it would make it harder to leave but she was looking so hopefully at him that how could he possibly refuse?

"Certainly," he said mildly.

Cosette beamed up at him before gesturing for Adele to follow her and running off. Adele quickly did as was requested but they stopped still within eyesight.

"Children make friends so easily," Madame Monceaux said happily as she watched them go. "I wish we could keep that. But alas, as we get older…" She looked over at Valjean for some sort of response.

"Indeed."

"I do hope that you and Cosette are settling in together nicely. You always look so happy when I see you together," Madame Monceaux told him.

"We are," Valjean agreed, uncertain of where she was going with this. He did enjoy speaking of Cosette but why would this woman wish to do so? Did she want to speak of her daughter as well? Why had she approaching him?

Madame Monceaux looked overly pleased at having managed to get two words from him. "I know that she must have had a terrible time of it, being away from her poor mother all that time. And then for that poor woman to be so sick and to finally die! At least Cosette was with her then and the child will remember her mother. The whole situation just broke my heart."

Valjean smiled uncertainly. He did not remember anyone being overly concerned with Fantine's plight in the past but then, how much did people truly know of it? Would someone as well-off as Madame Monceaux have even heard of it before Valjean himself had and he had intervened? Many of the people involved in her fall, himself included, had had no idea what they were doing to that brave young woman. There was no reason to assume that she was not serious. Many would hesitate before bursting into the sickroom of a stranger.

"You truly are a saint, Monsieur Madeleine," Madame Monceaux declared.

"I am but a man, Madame, and am as flawed as anyone despite my attempts to do good," Valjean corrected her gently.

"Of course you are," Madame Monceaux said matter-of-factly, her subtle look of triumph growing with every word he said. "Everyone is. What does that have to do with me calling you a saint?"

"Saints are…" Valjean trailed off. "Saints are people who are good beyond reason. I try to do good but I am too flawed to be among their number."

"I will not ask you to start listing off your flaws in order to try and convince me, Monsieur le Maire," Madame Monceaux said with a little laugh. "Saints are just as human as any of us. If they weren't they wouldn't be saints but angels. It would not be difficult, I do not believe, for someone who is perfect to be good so we would not have to admire them the way we do saints. To be a saint you achieve an unusual virtuousness but you have to struggle first. I must confess that I have seen no great struggle from you but your protests of being flawed make me imagine that it is there just the same."

That was certainly true. It became easier as the years went by to do good and to strive towards being a good person but he still knew that he had a long way to go. He rather doubted he would ever not have a long way to go but he had known that when he had first started down this road.

"You do so much good for everyone with nary a thought to yourself. You give away most of your fortune and, no matter how much you might love her now, you agreed to raise a little girl because she had no one else in the world," Madame Monceaux continued. "You need not argue with me on this point, Monsieur! I think another mark of a saint is to not believe that they are a saint. Can you imagine the hubris of a man who truly believes such a thing about himself?"

"So my best chance of not being seen as a saint is to go around proclaiming myself one?" Valjean asked, puzzled. He looked longingly over at Cosette but she seemed to be happy sneaking up on a bird with Adele.

Madame Monceaux laughed again. "Well, it would in my eyes. You are very well-respected, Monsieur le Maire, so you would surely have some people who would take your word for it."

"So there is no way not to have at least someone thinking that I am a saint," Valjean mused, sighing.

It made him uncomfortable that people would think that. He knew that they would not be thinking of a literal saint but it made him feel like a fraud. Yes he did a great deal of good in town (not all of which they were even aware of) but he had a lot to make up for as well. If these people knew about Toulon they would not say that he was so good. He hoped that he was not being uncharitable in fearing that they would not care about any of the good he had done if they knew but from the moment he had been arrested all anybody had been able to see was the fact that he had broke the law. Why should this place be any different? Yes he had not done as much good anybody else and was not seen as almost a saint but a convict was a convict and convicts were not, could never be, saints.

"Perhaps not," Madame Monceaux agreed, smiling. "It is alright, though. You should not put too much weight in what other people believe. Sometimes words can destroy a person but I do not believe you to be so vulnerable. Let people think you are a saint. There are worse things people can think about you."

Valjean remembered the whispers he had heard when he had consented to show the inexplicably curious his sparse chambers. "That is true."

"Oh, look at how well Adele and Cosette are getting along!" Madame Monceaux exclaimed. "I do hope that they will be able to be friends."

She was looking pointedly at him again so he just smiled her way.

"Adele has a governess so I'm afraid that she will not see Cosette at school," Madame Monceaux said regretfully. "And I really would like to give them the chance to spend time together. I do not know how it is with Cosette but my Adele is just too solitary. And you can never have enough friends."

"That is true," Valjean agreed.

He did not think he had ever actually had a friend. There had been no time for it when he was younger and worried about living to see the next year for as long as he could remember, before he was even old enough to work. There was no such thing as friends in Toulon. The closest thing to it, he supposed, were those who got too close to each other and traded on protection but that was nothing like the sweet friendships Cosette had developed with so many young girls. She had recently declared that he and Javert were friends. It was true that he spoke with Javert about as much as he spoke with anybody and Javert had come over to dinner more than once but the man had spent multiple years (who knew how long after meeting Madeleine he had started to suspect?) trying to prove that he was Jean Valjean. Even now, Javert would never cease trying to incarcerate him if he knew the truth. Were they friends? They were as close as he was ever going to be able to get, he supposed.

Truthfully, he did not need friends though Cosette seemed to appreciate having them.

"Oh, I know!" Madame Monceaux exclaimed. "It will be Christmas soon and my husband and I are having a celebration in a week's time. If you could bring Cosette then she and Adele could play together. Celebrations can be so much fun for children if they have a friend there and no one is always telling them to stay out of the way."

Valjean stiffened. "I do thank you for your offer, Madame Monceaux, but I do not think that that is a good idea."

Madame Monceaux did not look surprised. Of course she wouldn't be. Valjean had been receiving offers such as this one since he had first begun to gain prominence as a factory owner and before he had even become mayor. He had not accepted a single one and, sooner or later, people accepted that.

"Why not?" she asked anyway.

"I really am a private person," Valjean told her. "Celebrations, I'm afraid, hold little enjoyment for me."

Madame Monceaux nodded. "Oh, I quite understand! Two years ago – or was it three? – I was feeling rather ill during this same party. My head was traitorously attempting to murder me and I could not keep any food down but it was a celebration at my house and so I was obliged to attend."

"The celebration is not at my home," Valjean pointed out.

"Yes and presumably you will be feeling just fine," Madame Monceaux agreed. "It is not about that. I know that going will be a sacrifice but I am really thinking of little Cosette."

"Cosette?" Valjean repeated.

Madame Monceaux nodded innocently. "Oh, yes. In addition to the chance she will have to spend time with her new friend and perhaps meet some others, she cannot possibly have ever been to a celebration like this living with poor innkeepers in…Montfermeil, was it? And as you are such an important and distinguished man, your daughter will need to get used to going to such events sooner or later and it is far easier when you are younger to learn how to behave than when you are older. People are also far more willing to forgive lapses in a child than in a young woman."

"I do not think that she will need to," Valjean attempted to protest. For of course Cosette could not attend any such events before she was married unless he was there and that was something he would rather avoid. Besides, Cosette had not expressed the slightest interest in going to a society event. She might not have even heard of them.

"It is one thing if you do not care to attend such events, Monsieur le Maire, but think of Cosette! If she ever wants to marry some respectable gentleman then how else will she meet someone?" Madame Monceaux asked rhetorically. "Shall she sit at home and hope that one wanders into her garden one night? Maybe the brothers of her school friends will catch her eye. I'm sure they are all very nice people but would you, with the millions you have made and given away, really want your daughter to marry some poor boy?"

Valjean frowned at her. "There is nothing wrong with poor young men."

He had been one, once, before his crime and his nephews, if they still lived, would be poor young men as well. He would not be one to dismiss a man just because he did not have money. He could see, though not fully understand, that this would be a matter of unthinkable horror for the bourgeoisie or the aristocracy. He would not raise Cosette to look down on people like her mother.

"Of course not," Madame Monceaux agreed easily. "But you have raised Cosette up from poverty to comfort. Would you really condemn her back down to that? If she falls in love with a poor boy then she falls in love with a poor boy and you might be so generous as to give her a healthy dowry they can live off of for the rest of her life but do you really want that to be inevitable? If she does not meet any suitable young men then that will be her fate. And it's not just money! Society will not receive Madame le Gardener."

"Is it so important that she be involved with society?" Valjean asked. He would not see her denied anything but not having to go to those things did not really feel like a bad thing. Perhaps it was because he was old and a convict. Enough people seemed to enjoy them so as to keep having them and Cosette might even be one of them, if given the opportunity. Madame Monceaux was right in that it would be unacceptable for Cosette to have come so far only to be condemned to poverty again but he was even now siphoning off a small portion of his profits to add to her dowry so she would not need to worry about marrying money. "Not being so has never harmed me."

"You are a man, Monsieur le Maire, and you hold an important position in our town. Two, in fact," Madame Monceaux pointed out. "It would be different for her. If she does not want society she does not have to have it but would you really condemn her to not having that option because you will not attend my celebration?"

"I think that you are getting a little ahead of yourself," Valjean told her. "Her life will not be ruined if she is not received by society and she need not marry some penniless beggar off the street because she does not attend your celebration."

"Perhaps not," she conceded. "But why take the risk? It is just one evening and it will be fun. It will certainly help her along when she's older and longing to attend balls of her own."

The thought of Cosette growing up and wanting to attend balls and getting married, no matter who she was married to, was quite overwhelming. He took another look at that little girl. That was a long, long way off certainly. No doubt he would be better prepared as the time approached.

"I suppose that there is no harm in attending the one gathering, for Cosette's sake," Valjean said reluctantly. "She does not know what such things are like and I would not want her to miss out because I do not enjoy such things myself." For that matter, he did not know what they were like, only that there would be a lot of people there who would want to talk about things that were not business and would therefore be a miserable affair he would dearly love to escape.

Madame Monceaux smiled almost impossibly widely at him. "Oh, that is excellent news! You may say that I am exaggerating and perhaps I do have a tendency to do that but nothing bad ever came from attending a celebration."

Valjean looked once more over at Cosette. Surely they had played together enough and Cosette would see her in a week. Now that her mother had gotten what she wanted out of him, perhaps they could finally leave.

"I do have to wonder about your plans for Cosette," Madame Monceaux said.

"My plans?" Valjean asked, startled. "What do you mean?"

"If this were Paris then I would assume that you would send her to a convent," Madame Monceaux continued. She tilted her head. "Though perhaps not if you are truly fond of having her with you. Do you intend to keep her at the free school? Will you be engaging a governess at some point?"

"Why would I need a governess for Cosette?" Valjean asked blankly. "The free school is educating her and I have ensured that it provides a very good education."

"For some things, yes," Madame Monceaux said delicately though it was clear that she was refraining from saying something. "But what about things such as playing the piano or learning to dance? Where will she learn the things that will make her an accomplished young lady?"

Valjean frowned. "You will have to forgive me. I have no experience with accomplished young ladies. Is it terribly important for them to know how to do these things?"

"It is, yes," Madame Monceaux said promptly.

"Why?"

"Because such things are how society judges women, ladies, of worth from those that are consigned to…less grandeur," Madame Monceaux told him. "I know that it might seem rather silly to you but I trust that I shall be able to show you the value of such things beginning with the celebration."

There was something vaguely ominous with the way that she said 'beginning.'

Mercifully, Cosette soon ran over with Adele trailing behind her.

"Papa, will I be able to play with Adele again soon?" she asked hopefully.

"Yes," Valjean said, feeling a little bit better about all of this now that it was going to make Cosette happy. "We are going to a celebration at her house next week."

"A celebration?" Cosette asked, intrigued. "How exciting!"

"It was good to make your acquaintance, Madame Monceaux," Valjean told her politely.

"And yours, Monsieur le Maire," she responded cheerfully.

"Come Cosette, let us return home," Valjean said, trying not to think about the ordeal to come.