Chapter 29 - Soiled Skin
Grace felt like she was melting like warm butter.
She hadn't felt this relaxed in forever.
The hot water seeped into each curve and crevice of her body, pulling her taut muscles apart and soothing her skin.
She placed a leg over the rim of the copper bathtub and sunk down into the water deeper. Until it was right the way up to her chin. Until she felt heady from the scent of the lavender oil.
Her eyelids fluttered open. She could see the murky stain of the bruises on her skin underneath the surface of the water. They were dully throbbing in the warm heat but she was just about able to ignore it. There could have been a hurricane blowing through the streets outside, and she would have stayed in that bath.
When the water turned cold and chilly, she reluctantly roused herself, groaning a little as her sore muscles protested against her movement. She entered a small guest suite, just off the bathroom, to find that Toussaint had laid out some fresh clothes for her on the mattress. Men's clothes, too. Grace sighed in relief, glad that one of Cosette's big, bustling dresses hadn't been waiting for her. She dressed as quickly as she could manage, covering up the bruises in the crisp white linen shirt and slacks she'd been left.
Cosette was waiting in the drawing room downstairs. A pot of tea curling a tantalising whiff of steam into the air.
They had talked a little, whilst Grace had been waiting for Toussaint to heat all the water for her bath, so she'd managed to get Cosette partially up to speed with all that had happened since she'd left Provins. The boys, the cafe, the revolution... But she'd left Cosette hungry for more. And there was still more that Grace wanted to tell Cosette too.
"Grace! Come sit!" Cosette commanded, patting the loveseat beside her. "I told you, Toussaint!" She hollered into the hall. "She almost fainted when I told her to fetch some of Papa's clothes!"
Grace turned around to see the swift flick of the housemaid's apron disappear around the door. She snickered and turned back to Cosette.
She was already pouring her a cup of tea by the time she'd made it to the spot next to her.
"So, where is Monsieur Fauchelevent?"
"Out." Cosette said with a sigh. "He said he needed to clear his head or something. He's been… on edge since the Luxembourg Gardens."
"Why?"
Cosette shrugged. "As if he was the one who had his world turned on its head."
Grace gulped down her tea and looked into Cosette's face. Her eyes were glassy. She stared into a place that was far away and lovely, a small smile pulling at her lips.
"Oh God…" Grace sighed. "Not you too…"
"I don't know what's the matter with me!" She chuckled. "Perhaps I've been alone too much. Perhaps all those years behind the walls of the convent, and now behind the walls of this house…But… But…"
"The first man you see? Really?" Grace asked, eyebrow raised.
"I know I have very little experience with the other sex-"
"No experience."
"But I can just sense that he's…different."
Grace took a few macarons from off the plates in front of her. She ate a powder pink one silently, trying to think of what to say. Cosette suddenly reached out and grabbed at her arm.
"Tell me what he's like." She said firmly. "Is he clever or kind or strong or, or, or… I don't know! Who is he?!"
"He is a kind soul." Grace acknowledged. "I haven't met many men as kind as him."
"Oh, I knew it!" Cosette squealed.
"You didn't." Grace said sceptically. "How can you see all of that from one look? How can you tell if it's even real?"
"I feel it in my bones. It's the realest thing I have ever felt. Like a tether between my soul and his."
Something about what Cosette had said made Grace tense up. Those cold sweats came back again.
She felt that tether too. To a man who would be waiting for her this evening on the Pont au Double. Felt him in her bones like a giddy heaviness. Filling her up and making her feel gutted and hollow all at once. A feeling so solid she could almost catch it in her throat.
And suddenly, she was crying.
"Grace?" Cosette asked, frowning at her. "What is it? What's the matter?"
"Oh God, I'm such a idiot…" she cried, covering her face in her hands.
"Tell me. Please." Cosette said, taking her hand in hers.
"If I'm in love with him, then I can't leave, Cosette. And I can't… I can't stay here, can I?"
Cosette furrowed her brow at Grace, trying to pick apart the seemingly unconnected statements that had come out of her mouth.
"There is…someone in your life that you feel similarly about?" she asked Grace gently.
"I don't know what I feel!" Grace choked out, although it felt like a lie as soon as she said it.
"Well…" Cosette began cautiously. "…what does it feel like when you see his face?"
"Like the sun on my skin."
"And what does it feel like when you hear his voice?"
"Like the music of heaven."
Grace looked through her tears to find Cosette giving her a look of sympathy.
Cosette nodded solemnly at her.
Grace scrunched up her face and buried her head in her lap.
"Oh God, I feel sick." Grace moaned.
"You do not want this love?" Cosette asked her with a frown.
"It's not that I don't want him." Grace said, rubbing at her temple. "I do. I want every bit of him that he'll give me."
"Grace!" Cosette screeched, giggling with outrage.
"But I can't let myself fall. The pain when I hit the ground…Last time, it damn near almost killed me."
"But isn't that the beauty of love? We don't force ourselves to fall, we just fall. Even knowing that it might not last, the surrender is all the more spectacular because of it."
Grace wiped her face with her sleeve, sitting back against the loveseat and staring up at the ceiling.
"I know it's not fair…to even remotely compare him to David. I know I'm afraid of old hurt, not new him. But it took me so long to piece myself back together. So long, I was afraid I'd always have parts of me missing… Isn't it madness? To do the same thing that got you hurt last time, expecting something different to happen?"
"There's always some madness in love. But there's always some kind of reason in madness."
Grace was silent for a long time. Her stomach churned inside her, but in a way that felt oddly pleasant. Full and overflowing. But also like she'd not eaten for days.
She laughed. A chuckle that slipped out of her in a sudden burst.
"Ahh, fuck. I love him, don't I?" Grace said glibly.
"I'm sorry, my friend, but it rather sounds like it."
Grace sighed, her eyes closed as she let the sinking feeling in her chest swamp her heart.
"And now, you simply must tell me his name!" Cosette screeched, shaking her shoulders with vigour.
"Grace opened an eye and groaned. "Javert." She said flatly.
"And what is his Christian name?"
Grace opened her mouth to answer, but abruptly closed it. "Bloody hell… I don't know."
"Oh, God for shame! And you were chastising me for loving a man I've seen once! You are telling me you don't even know his name?!"
"Well look, if I ever muster up the courage to actually tell the bugger, I'll make sure I find out for you!"
Cosette laughed and took a sip of her tea.
Grace sat in stunned silence for a long while. The absurdity of it all made her want to laugh aloud again. She was used to finding dates on Hinge, or having some hopeful Undergrad muscle up to her at the bar of The White Horse. Love came after the third or fourth month of cafe dates and a quick introductions to the parents via FaceTime. She'd at least expected to have got to third base, once or twice, before the 'love' bomb dropped…
And still, the feeling that burned bright in her blood sang stronger than anything she'd ever felt before.
Because falling for Javert had happened in a language that was almost foreign to her. Made all the more remarkable not just because of where she was, but who he was too.
What might happen in the future, she left to the future. But now it was finally out of her and in the open air, she just lay back and let it sing to her.
Hell might have been coming to her, but right then, heaven had never felt so near.
Javert watched Grace approach him on the Pont au Double, cherishing each quirk of her lips as her smile grew wider and wider.
"Wait." he said abruptly, when she was still about ten paces from him.
She halted her steps and frowned at him.
He reached inside the inner pocket of his leather coat and produced the strange glass-brick item.
"Is this what you were after, Mademoiselle?" He asked, unable to keep the smile from his face.
Grace's face bloomed into the most beautiful expression of joy he'd ever seen. The sound she made was almost a scream of pure happiness, and she charged at him.
He almost keeled over when she came barrelling into him, arms wrapping around him as tears of relief sprang from her eyes.
"Thank you…" she breathed, her face pressed close to his chest. "Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you…"
He pressed the odd thing into her palm and she, in turn, held it close to her heart.
"You'll never know…what you've done for me here." She said, her eyes gazing mistily up into his. "This is worth more to me than all the tea in China."
"And you doubted my abilities." He said teasingly, his face a massive grin.
"Oh trust me, I never will again!" She replied, running her fingers over the lapels of his coat. She looked up into his eyes coquettishly, and his throat suddenly felt tight. "You know what, Inspector… You're alright, I suppose."
"Oh, what a glowing review!" He chuckled out.
"Well what do you want? Would you like me to fall to my knees and kiss your boots?"
Her eyes sparkled with wickedness. Javert too felt a sudden throb of lust at the thought of her on her knees in front of him…
"You are incorrigible, Mademoiselle." He said hoarsely.
"An equally lovely review for myself." Grace replied teasingly.
He snorted out a laugh but did not reply, simply stayed still and silent. Javert gazed into her face, enjoying the glowing sense of pride her smile ignited in his heart.
Grace pried her phone away from her chest and gazed at it almost disbelievingly. She fought the urge to turn it on there and then. She longed to see her Mum's face, and look upon all of those pictures that she thought she'd never get the chance to see again. Her memories, her life, everything that she'd thought lost forever, he'd returned them all to her. Just like he'd promised.
Grace reached a hand up to Javert's face. She let her fingers dance through the coarse hair on his cheek for a moment, before pulling him into a deep kiss.
His engagement was soft and gentle. But as she pulled away, she sensed something else in his kiss. A hesitancy. Or distraction, maybe.
"What is it? What's wrong?"
Javert softly shook his head, smiling weakly at her. She could sense that his head was elsewhere. The first time his mind had been anywhere other than solely on her during their meetings.
"How to even explain to you…" he said hoarsely. "Where to even start…"
"Oh God, that sounds encouraging..." She said sarcastically.
"I've told you so little of who I am. The road I trod before it led me to you…"
Grace blinked at him in surprise. He was right. She knew next to nothing about him, other than the small snippets of information she'd teased out of him.
"So, this is something to do with…your past?"
Javert nodded in confirmation. He let out a long huff of air through his nose and looked out over the Seine. "And it pains me to muddy your life with the stain of mine. But…"
"But what?"
"But I haven't been able to banish this person from my mind for fifteen years. Since the last time we met."
Grace's chest went tight. She knew the flavour of this emotion well: Jealousy.
"I see." She said tightly. "So, what's her name?"
"Her name?" Javert said, his brows knitting together.
"Well, from the way you… I assumed… Because of the way you spoke about…"
Javert huffed and shook his head at her. "No, Mademoiselle. I'm afraid you have misinterpreted the fervour of my obsession, there. The last - or perhaps I should say - the only other woman I've ever had in my life…"
He trailed off, his sentence unfinished. But Grace understood the meaning of his words. She sensed a great pain there.
"Alright, then who?" She asked.
"I…I feel foolish even articulating it aloud to you."
"Well, say it anyway. How many times have I made a fool of myself in front of you?"
He snorted and his shoulders dropped a little of their tension.
"Long before I was appointed a Préfet… I worked in the prison hulks in Toulon."
Grace nodded, encouraging him on.
"It was after I left the Army. After Napoleon's downfall, I needed the work elsewhere. And so, I became a Chourmes."
"I'm following so far." Grace said, wondering why he seemed to be halting and hesitant.
Javert sighed and took a heavy seat down upon the wall of the bridge. As he sat, staring at his boots, Grace took a seat beside him. She said nothing, letting him find his breaths as he clenched up his leather-gloved hands into tight fists.
"There was a Prisoner." He ground out through his clenched jaw. "His number was 24601"
Something odd started to happen in Grace's head. A gentle breeze that blew away a few cobwebs, to begin with, but it soon became a howling wind, tearing the roof off.
"24601…" she echoed.
"He was a thief. Five years for what he did. The other fourteen because he tried to run."
Her head was pounding. The wind was screaming at her Remember….! REMEMBER…!
"And I don't know why I stamped his face upon my memory. I don't know why I committed his countenance to my mind. But I had to. I had to…"
"24601…" she breathed again.
Her hand had started tapping out something on her thigh. A series of notes.
A
All the while, that wind crashed into that wall in her mind. Screaming at her: REMEMBER! REMEMBER! REMEMBER!
"I left the hulks not long after he was freed. It felt hollow for me to be there. I couldn't. It was like I was being called elsewhere. I thought twice about joining the police force, but I had the relevant skill set." Javert scoffed bitterly. "I'd almost been bred for it."
Grace hummed out those notes.
It was almost easy to put them together.
Two (B) Four (B) Six (A) Oh (G) One (A)
Javert broke out of his introspection, glancing over at Grace to see her staring into the distance, glassy eyed and vacant.
"Grace?" He asked, concern in his voice.
"24601…" she said again. Grace tapped out the melody on her thigh again and sang the melody out aloud. "Two four six oh one…"
"Yes." Javert said, his concern growing. "That was his number. But his name was-"
"Jean Valjean."
Javert launched to his feet. He stood over Grace like an imposing tower of blackness.
"How do you know that?" He demanded, his voice now edged with sharpness.
Grace looked up into his face to find it singing with panic.
"I…I don't know."
Montreuil-sur-Mer was just like any other backwater, shit-hole town he'd served in: Teeming with prostitutes down by the docks, thieves lurking in the rougher parts of town with shanks and knives, beggars on the streets wailing at the top of their lungs for alms. The town had recently had a nasty bout of plague. Orphaned children ran through the streets, looking for food, their parents long since claimed by the epidemic.
He'd been redirected here by the district's commanding officer. Since leaving Toulon, he'd policed an uncountable number of towns like this in northern France. Nothing to distinguish one from the other. Every one of them was infected with the same problem: poverty.
Dirty, stinking poverty wherever he went.
He'd fallen into his new role naturally. It was almost exactly like he remembered it, down in Caen, trailing after Froid. His mentors and superiors had been rather surprised with how quickly he'd adapted to his new responsibilities. How easily he completed even the most gruelling and difficult of tasks. His dedication was commendable. His honour is incorruptible. And his commanding officer said he was heading for a significant promotion by the time he reached his late thirties.
Montreuil-sur-Mer was his test. His first solo dispatch. If he proved himself a good policeman here, then perhaps Commander of the District wasn't so far away. And all he had to do was uphold his strict discipline, maintain his impressive rate of arrests, and keep a weather eye out for anything majorly worrying.
His horse's hooves thundered down the main street of the town. Shopkeepers and workers cast their eyes up to him as he passed them by. It was to be expected; he was a new face in their midst. But he made a point of returning each and every one of their looks, giving them a hard and unflinching stare, until they were the first one to look away. It was important that these men knew that he was unbreakable. He would not accept bribes, he would not accept a cut of meat or a new tailored jacket to look the other way on their shady dealings. He was the Law. And the Law, they had to realise, was incorruptible.
He made it a point of procedure to visit all of the men of importance in the town. The Chancellor, the Treasurer, the School-Master, even the Mother-Superior who ran the hospital for the sick. During the course of their conversations, they had all mentioned one name. One man who they claimed was the very heart and soul of Montreuil-Sur-Mer. Monsieur Madeline, the Mayor.
"Oh, he is the best of us, Inspector Javert."
"His generosity truly knows no bounds."
"This town would have fallen on its knees a long time ago, if it weren't for him."
"He does God's work."
It seemed like the name of Monsieur Madeline carried no black mark whatsoever. Javert had never heard a man talked about in so much glowing whiteness before. And perhaps it was true. The man had revolutionised the town's manufacturing, building a glass bead factory where half the women of Montreuil-sur-Mer worked. With his impressive wealth, he'd doubled the size of the Mother-Superior's hospital, he'd built schools, raised orphanages for the children left with no one after the plague epidemic. He was the closest thing to a living Saint that Javert had ever come across.
Which intrigued Javert. Because no one was a Saint.
He dismounted his horse just outside the glassworks factory, staring up at the large and rather impressive facade. But as he cast his eyes over the pains of murky glass that, most likely, lined the managerial offices on the top floor, a face appeared through the grime. Staring back down at him. Warped and strange.
Javert froze in place. Feeling like an animal caught down the barrel of a hunter's rifle. He was being watched by the figure behind the glass. More intently than the way he had been watched by the others, as he'd passed down the highstreet atop his horse. There was something vaguely threatening about the way this face watched him.
As if, perhaps, they were weighing up if they should be the one to attack first, before they were attacked.
Javert removed his top hat slowly, not wanting to scare the watching figure into bolting. He wished he could see them clearer. Cursing the warped glass under his breath.
But in the corners of his vision, Javert saw people running.
He heard the screams and the fear in the air.
And then the cart came careening down the street.
It crashed into the bookies shop on the other side of the road, glass smashing and timber cracking.
There was only one horse attached to the coulter, the other gone completely. The wooden breaching scraping along the ground as the panicked horse smashed its way from left to right.
A man sat atop the carriage, desperately tugging on his reins and screaming to the people around him.
"Get out the way! Move!"
Women walking the pavement screamed and dropped their hampers, lurching out of the path of the cart.
The panicked horse whinnied and slammed itself into another shopfront. Javert heard a crack and the coulter broke, and in the next moment, the horse had collapsed.
Javert watched it happen with sickening clarity.
The horse's crumpled body slammed into the cart's wheels.
The cart lifted into the air.
The poor driver at its front was thrown skyward.
And as they both fell to the ground, the man's limp, ragdoll body disappeared underneath the wagon.
The crash as the bulk of the wagon hit the ground was deafening. The silence that followed, even more so.
It took a moment for Javert to spring into action, only forcing his feet to move when he heard the wails from the women onlookers.
He approached the wreckage cautiously, the braying noise of the injured horse mingling with the cries of shock and pain that grew around him. Expecting to find a corpse, he steeled himself as he crunched over the carriage's broken glass.
But the body trapped underneath the carriage moved. Arms twitching and eyes wide with fear.
"He's alive!" Javert called to the onlookers. "Quickly! Fetch some strong men to help me!"
One of the onlooking women picked up her skirts and went running for the factory.
"Monsieur Le Maire! Monsieur Le Maire!" She cried in a tight voice of terror.
Javert bent to the ground, curling his fingers around the carriage. He groaned and strained as he tried to lift its bulk off the man, but he could not raise it even an inch. His straining arms relented, and the trapped man cried out in pain as the weight of the carriage pressed down upon him again.
"Is there no one who can help?!" Javert cried at the onlookers. "He shall be crushed if we cannot free him!"
"Please, move aside! Move aside!" A voice called, cutting through the crowd.
The onlookers parted and there emerged a mature but robust gentleman. He was dressed well, his crisp white shirt rolled up about his elbows. He cast a shocked but calm glance over the wreckage and bent low to speak to the trapped man.
"It's alright, Pierre. Try to stay calm, we'll get you out of there soon."
Despite the direness of the situation, Javert felt oddly distracted. Something about this man alarmed him. Like he'd seen him before in some distant nightmare. But as the man stood to his feet and removed his impeccable waistcoat, he couldn't shake off the strange feeling that had suddenly gripped him.
"It's… it's heavy." Javert eventually forced himself to say. "I would wager that we'll need perhaps three or maybe even four to lift it."
"Someone be ready to pull him out!" The man called to the onlookers around them.
"Monsieur, did you not hear me? You would need the strength of a giant to-"
But the gentleman simply crouched beside the carriage, pressing his back to the bulk and curling his fingers underneath the frame.
He took in a deep, long breath and heaved.
The world stood still as the man groaned with exertion. His exposed, taut arm muscles bulged under the weight of the carriage. His face contorted into a grimace of pain.
But Javert watched on in stupefied shock as he lifted it, inch by precious inch, off the ground.
The trapped man groaned as the carriage eased off his legs.
"Now! NOW!" The gentleman grunted.
Two others lurched forwards and dragged the man out from underneath the wreckage.
Once his feet were free, the gentleman let it drop with an almighty crash and slumped down onto the cobblestones.
Sounds of relief and happiness rippled through the gathered crowd.
Applause started too, and the gentleman bashfully raised a hand of acknowledgment to them all.
"Take him to the Mother-Superior." The gentleman said, rising to his feet.
"Oh, thank you. Thank you, Monsieur Le Maire..." The previously trapped man uttered weakly. "You come from God in Heaven."
"Then send your thanks directly to Him, not to me." The gentleman replied, patting him on the shoulder.
The man was swiftly taken away, and soon the crowd too began to disperse.
Tearful women approached him to kiss his cheek and bestow their gratefulness upon him too. He answered all of their thanks with a humble smile.
Eventually, however, he was left with just Javert, and when their eyes finally met, he felt the stab of something cold and fearful in his guts.
"Monsieur Madeline, I presume." Javert said, straightening his back.
The gentleman continued to roll down his sleeves, casting his gaze up and down Javert. "That's correct, Sir."
"Inspector Javert of the Hauts-de-France precinct, Monsieur."
He extended a hand out to him and waited for Monsieur Madeline to shake it. His hand hung there for a long moment, and Javert almost expected a snub. But eventually the gentleman took his hand in his and gripped it with some vigour.
"Not the introduction I would have planned, Inspector." He said, flashing him a small, disarming smile.
"I must say, I am impressed, Monsieur." Javert replied, bobbing his head to him. "A man your age, to be as strong as you are…"
"A man my age!" Monsieur Madeline chuckled. "Goodness, I must look as old as I feel. Oh Inspector, you do wonders for my confidence!"
"I…I meant no offence, Sir. I only-"
"I am teasing you, Inspector. No offence was taken."
Javert loosed the taut breath he'd been holding as Monsieur Madeline gave him another bright smile.
"Would you care to join me inside, Inspector?" He asked, gesturing back to the factory.
Javert simply nodded and followed on where the gentleman led.
They passed through the factory doors and Monsieur Madeline led him through the work floor. Tables upon tables of women were sat at their benches, picking and fiddling with an assortment of black beads.
"What is it you make here?" Javert asked.
"Jet bead jewellery." He called over his shoulder. Madeline stopped at the back of one of the workers and tapped her on the shoulder. "Fantine, show him your excellent work."
Javert glanced down at the doe-eyed woman Monsieur Madeline had spoken to. A strand of golden hair fell down over her face, peeking out from under her uniform cap. She hastily tucked it back behind her ear and held up a partially assembled necklace made of the black beads. Her cheeks were blushed red.
"I'm afraid I'm not as fast as the others yet, Monsieur." She said in a timid voice.
"Fantine has just recently joined us. What is it now? Two weeks?"
"That's right, Monsieur." She said, keeping her eyes cast low.
"Well, I'm sure you'll be as nimble-fingered as the others in no time at all."
Fantine's lips quirked into a weak smile, and Monsieur Madeline grinned at her.
"This way, Inspector." He said, leading Javert onwards.
Eventually, they reached his office, and Monsieur Madeline took a heavy seat in his desk chair.
"Nasty business." He said, shaking his head. "With God's grace, hopefully his legs will heal in time."
"Indeed. It is fortunate that you were on hand to offer your services, Monsieur."
"The folk of this town are good people, Inspector." The gentleman said steadily. "I'm sure that any one of them would have done the same as I, if they had been around to help."
"You seem to have a lot of confidence in the good nature of people, Monsieur."
"Well, I find that people who have been shown kindness do kind things in turn."
"Hmm, not so in my experience, Monsieur Le Maire."
There was silence between them for a long moment. Javert kept his eyes locked onto the gentleman's face, that strange, distracted feeling he'd felt before rising up in his throat.
"Forgive me, Monsieur, but did you… ever serve in Napoleon's armies?" He asked.
Madeline gave him a casual, confused sort of frown and shook his head. "No, Inspector."
"Or perhaps… I don't suppose you hail from Caen?"
"No. Uhh, Poitiers."
"Poitiers." Javert echoed thoughtfully. "Forgive me, Monsieur, but your face stirs memories in me. Memories that I can't seem to recall."
"Oh, how inconvenient for you." Monsieur Madeline chuckled.
"Curious, Sir, more than anything. You see, my duties require me to commit…certain faces to my memory. And yours…yours sparked something behind my eyes."
Monsieur Madeline shrugged. "I'm sorry, Inspector. I wish I could help put your mind to rest."
"Hmm." Javert mumbled.
He stood to his feet and donned his tophat.
"Well, perhaps it will come back to me eventually." He added, giving the Mayor another hard and long stare.
"Would you like a more thorough tour of the factory?" Monsieur Madeline added quickly. "Or perhaps a glass of brandy. I think I may need a tipple to settle the nerves after all that outside!"
"No, Sir. I never imbue alcohol whilst I'm on duty. It muddles the senses. And this town deserves an Inspector who is consistently… alert, shall we say."
Madeline nodded, but kept his mouth shut.
"Until we meet again, Monsieur Le Maire." Javert said, giving him a stiff bow.
"I look forward to it, Inspector." Madeline replied. "On the provision, of course, that I am on the right side of the Law when we do!" He added jovially.
"Hmm."
And with that, he turned and left. But still, he could not shake off that feeling of unease that clung to his skin. Like he'd somehow touched something soiled, and his hands were now covered in something invisible and foul. He had done nothing untoward, behaved completely appropriately for a man in his position. Yet he still felt that, leaving that factory, he was now somehow tarnished.