Chapter Nineteen
One night, Valjean's eyes snapped open as he heard someone walking around. He did not think that he had ever been a light sleeper. If that wasn't true then he had certainly learned to wake easily in Toulon. Oh, he had quickly learned how to sleep through what had once seemed an unbearably loud noise each night but he had had to be on his guard even whilst sleeping and wake up immediately if something changed. He did not want to fall prey to an irate guard or an overly-bold convict.
But this was not Toulon. This was Montreuil and he was the mayor. Javert had been the only one to ever suspect the seemingly respectable man he was now of being that terrible convict from years ago and miles and miles away and he would never commit the crime of house-breaking in order to try and prove it. And there was Champmathieu anyway. If someone wished to rob him, not that he much to steal, they need only wait until he was gone during the day and not come at night.
There was no reason for anyone to be here.
He sat up and quickly lit a candle before going out into the hall to see what had woken him.
He saw Cosette moving slowly and wrapping rag-laden arms around herself.
"Cosette?" Valjean asked, concerned.
Cosette blinked dazedly at him. "I'm sorry, Papa."
That alarmed him. "Cosette, what's wrong?"
Cosette unwrapped her arms and held the rags up for him to see. "I made a mess."
"Surely it can wait until morning!" Valjean exclaimed.
But Cosette shook her head, wincing a little as she did so. "No. If you wait until morning it just gets harder to clean. It's better to do it now."
Valjean hated to think of how she had acquired that knowledge. Little children should not be expected to clean like they were servants.
"Cosette, do not concern yourself with that," Valjean said gently, moving closer to her and taking the rags out of her hands.
"But-"
"What happened? What mess did you make that you must now clean up in the middle of the night?" Valjean asked.
"I…" Cosette brought her hands up to cover her face.
Valjean slipped his hand into hers. "Show me."
Cosette brought her other hand down reluctantly and nodded. She led him to her room where he could smell the vomit before he could see it. Fortunately it was on the floor and a little bit of the wall and not on the bed itself or on Cosette.
Still, Cosette was such a healthy child despite what the Thénardiers said and so, after many months, this was the first time he had seen any sign of her being ill. And she hadn't woken him or wanted him to even know, preferring instead to try and clean the mess by herself when she was sick. How long had she been ill? Had she been ill before and just never told him? How could he have not noticed this?
Cosette had been pointedly staring down at the ground but she chanced a look up at his face, bit her lip, and quickly looked down again. What had she seen there?
"Are you alright, Cosette?" Valjean demanded.
Cosette nodded shakily. "Y-Yes, I am. I just couldn't help it. I'm sorry."
What would the Thénardiers have done if Cosette still lived with them? Cleaning it up quietly in the middle of the night and hoping that nobody ever knew was probably her safest option.
Valjean bent down so that he was eye-to-eye with his daughter. "Cosette, you never have to apologize for being sick. When you are ill, other people are supposed to care for you."
"Like you?" Cosette asked.
Valjean nodded, relieved that she was not going to try and argue about it. Cosette did not argue much as a general rule but if she did not understand or agree about something then she did not always accept it and so it would really be easier if she did argue.
"Like me."
"When you're ill, will I take care of you?" Cosette asked curiously.
"I don't get ill," Valjean told her.
"Everyone gets ill," Cosette said seriously.
"Maybe when you're older," Valjean said, smiling indulgently. "Right now if I get ill and need any help then I will get a doctor or Madame Martin."
Cosette considered this. "Alright. Are you going to get Madame Martin now?"
Valjean shook his head. "It is too early to wake her up."
"You're awake," Cosette pointed out.
"I am already awake."
Cosette looked down again. "I do not want you to have to clean up my mess."
Valjean kissed her forehead and started to lead her away from her room and into his. "You do not have to worry about that. I like taking care of you, Cosette. I am your father."
Cosette looked unconvinced but allowed herself to be tucked into bed all the same. "But where will you sleep?"
"Do not worry about me, Cosette," Valjean said, touched at her concern just the same. Was it wrong to be glad that there was someone who would worry about him, even if it was entirely unnecessary? As long as he told her that she did not need to then it was okay, perhaps. It was not as though he were unused to sleeping without a bed and the floor here was much softer than the wood or stone he had used before. And if nothing else, there were always the chairs. He had gotten some that were more comfortable after Cosette insisted on sitting on them all the time and he did not want her to be uncomfortable.
"I have to worry about you," Cosette said pragmatically. "I love you."
His smile grew at that. "And that is precisely why I do not want you to worry."
She yawned. "I do not want you to worry, either, but you always do."
"Ah, but I am the father."
"And I am the daughter," Cosette murmured.
Valjean made no reply and just watched as she drifted off to sleep. Even after all this time, he never tired of the sight or ceased to marvel that someone so innocent could trust him enough to let down all of her defenses and drift off when he was right there. She may not know of his past (would never know of his past if he could help it) and so she only knew the man he was now and that was good enough for her.
Eventually, he stood up and went to go get the rags that he realized he had dropped in Cosette's room. He had not had to do this in quite some time but evidently cleaning vomit up was one of those things that you just never forgot how to do. He would not go so far as to say that he enjoyed having to do it now as it was really an unpleasant task but he did not mind and he truly did not want Madame Martin to have this unfortunate surprise in the morning as well as her usual duties. He would never allow Cosette to have to do this.
When he was done, he cleaned himself off and rinsed the rags off as best he could before going off to see if he could get a little more sleep before he needed to begin the day.
Fortunately, Madame Martin knew much more about taking care of sick children than he did. He supposed his nieces and nephews must have been sick at some point before he was taken away (probably fairly often given how poor they were) but he simply could not remember and doubted that he had much to do with taking care of them then anyway. That would have been Jeanne's duty while he was trying to keep them from starving.
She made Cosette some plain toast and some tea and suggested that Cosette stay in bed that day.
Cosette had looked almost frightened at the suggestion but Valjean thought that it was a good idea. He did have responsibilities but nothing so pressing that he could not have someone bring him important paperwork and delegate what he could not do tomorrow or whenever Cosette was feeling better. He did not think he would be able to concentrate with Cosette sick and out of his reach when he wanted to look in on her anyway.
He read to her and played with Catherine with her before lunch and afterwards he got some work done while she took a nap.
He walked by her room again and saw that she was awake and looking surprisingly serious.
"Cosette?"
"Is this how people are supposed to be sick?" she asked him.
Valjean thought that this might be a long conversation and probably a difficult one as well and so he entered her room and sat down at the edge of her bed. "What do you mean?"
"I've never been sick like this before," Cosette revealed. "Sometimes Ponine and Zelma were sick and stayed in bed but I thought that was because they were ladies. Does everyone do this?"
"Everyone that can afford to," Valjean said. "Sometimes if you are really poor you still have to get up no matter how bad you are feeling and do your work but you are a little child and we are more comfortable than that and so you should stay in bed until you feel better."
"They always had debt," Cosette said slowly. "They worked really hard and made me work even harder. But they never had no food or nice clothes for Ponine and Zelma. They never had to have them help me work. They could have been nicer."
'Nicer.' Well that was one word for it.
"Cosette…"
"We never talk about them," Cosette noted.
"No," agreed Valjean. What could he possibly say about it? It was not as if he had a great deal of experience in talking about his own painful past though sometimes he wanted to. It was foolish and naïve, of course. It was alright for him to go on about it to the bishop when they had first met before he had known the bishop as anyone but just another person soon to reject him because then he was still Jean Valjean. Monsieur Madeleine had no such luxury. "Would you like to?"
Cosette tilted her head. "I do not know."
"Cosette, I promise you that anything you ever want to tell me, anything at all, is something that I will want to hear," Valjean vowed.
Cosette gave him a watery smile. Would she never stop breaking his heart?
"Why?"
He was about to reply that it was because he was her father and that is what fathers did, or at least should do, when it occurred to him that wasn't what she was asking.
"Why what, Cosette?" he asked.
"You say that my mother loved me," she said softly. "I know that that is true. She really loved me when I came here and was so worried about who would love me when she died. When I was a baby she must have loved me, too."
"She did," Valjean said automatically though of course he had no more firsthand knowledge of this than Cosette did.
"And you love me, too. You take really good care of me. But the Thénardiers didn't. They hurt me and didn't give me anything that they didn't have to. They sent me out in the woods all the time for water with a bucket that was bigger than me. They were…they were bad," Cosette finished, twisting her quilt in her hands.
"I'm sorry." What else could he say?
Cosette looked confused. "It's not your fault and you saved me. You saved my mother, too. You're good. But I don't know why they were so bad. Why were they so good to their own daughters but couldn't be nice to me?"
"I don't know," Valjean said helplessly. Even at his worst, it was the thought of hurting a child (of stealing from Petit Gervais which still haunted him no matter what the boy himself might say of it today) that always got to him. He had done his best to help raise seven for as long as he could and if he could have afforded an eighth one, let alone been paid to take care of it, he wouldn't have turned that one away. "But you have to believe, Cosette, that it was not your fault. It was because they were not good and had nothing to do with you."
"Really?" Cosette asked in a small voice.
"Really," Valjean reassured her. "You are a wonderful little girl and they didn't realize how lucky they were to have you."
"I still dream about those days sometimes," Cosette admitted. "A few nights ago I had a dream that Madame Thénardier came here and took me away."
"She will never hurt you again. More than likely, you will never even see her again but even if you do she can do nothing to you," Valjean said firmly. "I will protect you from her and her husband and whoever else you need protection from."
"I know," Cosette said, smiling. "I used to worry but now it's just when I sleep that I can't remember."
"What happened to you was very bad but it doesn't make you bad," Valjean continued. "And you and I are going to stay here and be happy."
"I like that," Cosette said. "Back in Montfermeil, I never could have dreamed of such a life! I think I might have been becoming bad then."
"Nonsense."
"I used to cut the heads off of flies," Cosette told him. "I never knew that I shouldn't. And I tried to love them but I couldn't. I hated them. And I'm told that good little girls shouldn't lie but I used to lie all the time. I said things like 'I already watered your horse' or 'of course I didn't steal bread from the kitchen.'"
Stealing bread. He did not think a child would be thrown into prison but the Thénardiers would not have been kind.
"Did they believe you?"
Cosette looked away. "No. But there was always a chance."
"Cosette, you were just a child doing the best you could in a terrible situation," Valjean told her. "It was never your fault that you were there. I think you were not as bad as you think you were. You certainly were not bad when I met you only a little while after leaving the Thénardiers. But even if you were it was their job to raise you better and not to force you to that."
"I didn't know how bad it was until things got better. I'm scared of who I would be when I grew up if you hadn't saved me," Cosette admitted.
"Sometimes loving people is hard," Valjean said gently. "Loving you was never hard, though. When people are mean to you and hurt you then it can be the hardest thing in the world to just not hate them, let alone love them. Do not blame yourself that you could not love those that hurt you."
"Would you have hated them if it was you?" Cosette asked him quietly.
"Now…I don't think so. I do not think that I could ever hate anybody as long as I have you with me," Valjean replied. "But before…I was not always the man I am today. I did hate, once, though I regret that fact now. There is nothing we can do about the past and we must move forward and try to be better."
"I can do that," Cosette agreed. "But I think that you were not as bad as you think, either."
Oh, the sweet innocence of a child! He had seen her so very shortly after leaving the Thénardiers that he could not imagine that she had changed much. And she was a child! Nineteen years in Toulon after a lifetime of struggle and deprivation was quite another matter but he had no desire to correct her misapprehension.
"Perhaps," he said neutrally. He wondered if he should say the next part. He hardly wanted to encourage lying in the girl but just the same he did not want her to have need of falsehood one day and not be able to utilize it. He had often wondered why Fantine had not taken Cosette to Montreuil with her and claimed that she was a widow or Cosette was her niece or something of the like. Had she not wanted to disclaim her child? Had she feared no one would believe her? The truth had come out somehow and she had not been able or willing to lie to them. "But as to lying, that is not always a sin, my child."
Cosette's eyes widened. "It isn't?"
"You should not lie to hurt others or to spare yourself in most cases," Valjean clarified, wondering if she was too young for this. "If you broke a window and I asked you who did it you should not pretend it was not you. But if it is important, really important, then there is nothing wrong with lying."
Cosette looked confused. "Like when?"
"Let us pretend that a man gets very angry and wants to kill another man," Valjean said slowly. "Pretend that this second man is trying to hide so that he will not die. If he runs past you and hides and you know where he is hiding and the first man asks you where he is, do you suppose that the right thing to do is to tell him the truth and let him kill the man?"
Cosette was quiet for a long moment, thinking it over. "No."
"Exactly. Don't lie about small things or people will not trust you and that is bad but if it is important to lie, I don't want you to get in trouble one day and not be able to lie to save yourself."
Cosette nodded. "I think I understand."
"Good," Valjean said. "I hope you never are in a situation like that and I will do my best to make it so but you can never know what the future holds."