Child of the Law (ch2)
9 February 2016 09:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
igenlodeThis was never intended to be a long story; in fact, I very nearly published it as a single chapter, though on balance I'm glad I didn't. And it does split quite neatly...
Chapter 2: le père Valjean
Things were hard in Montreuil-sur-mer since Madeleine’s workshops had closed, and becoming harder. Misery bred want and desperation with scant regard for the law, and Javert drove himself and his men relentlessly to control every infraction and re-establish order by any means at hand. The inspector’s cold eyes were everywhere and the long arm of his authority seldom far behind. It was a matter for some remark, therefore, when it became known that of late his iron grasp had, on occasion, been rumoured to relent.
There was the case of Mère Badeau, for one, whose only son, a hapless half-wit, had been sent home with a scathing reprimand in lieu of the five days in the cells which he had merited for a drunken brawl. And there was Clothilde the laundress, who had spat in the face of madame la député when that worthy’s wife had turned her away for the third time with her account still unpaid: a case of common assault that should have earned her six weeks’ hard labour, but cost her only a public penance and the ruination of what little trade she had among the dowagers of the town. (A trade which, it must be added, was of the kind that brings more reflected glory than profit, for while the linen of these great ladies was very fine their payment was often tardy or indefinitely deferred.)
The cases had been dismissed upon authority. Whose? Upon that of the inspector of police, exercising official discretion. The rumours were met with incredulity, but they persisted.
And as autumn chills wore on into the first tentative frosts of winter, the whispers became widespread — after the faceless habit of all such assertions — that it was to the child Ursule that this unprecedented tempering of the fires of justice could be ascribed. She attended school now in the lower town, at the shabby establishment which the former mayor before his fall had endowed and which still struggled on, and Javert paid over the necessary sous each week to the instructress there with a regularity that was a great comfort to that beleaguered lady. But when Madame Ducrocq, mother to great lumpen Marcine at the back of the class and a string of brutish elder brothers besides, presumed upon this connection to approach the child with an ingratiating smile and a tantalising glimpse of a large and beautiful doll, she found herself rebuffed with a fierce scorn that was all too reminiscent of the inspector himself.
Ursule, it seemed, was not amenable to bribes. Nor was she easily cozened, even when Madame, with a well-worn tear in her eye, hinted that she might like to intercede for poor, poor Pierrot, who had been caught quite by no fault of his own with his hand in a gentleman’s coat pocket and a fine selection of purses tucked away in his possession.
Pierre Ducrocq was duly sent to await justice; and word spread among those of a certain class that for all her tender years the Javert girl was not such a soft touch as had been hoped. If she was a weak point in the inspector’s impregnable walls, then it was a breach over which she stood guard with fierce loyalty. None of his superiors could have set higher store than she did upon his duty, and in that they were entirely of one mind.
Her classmates regarded this child of the law at first with suspicion, and she for her part bore wary memories of childish cruelty that prompted her to draw apart. But a flock of little girls is a bright-eyed, shifting thing that can fly up into the air in a moment and come down again with a new member in its midst almost without perceiving it. Ursule was not pretty enough to rival the reigning beauty, Nicolette of the golden ringlets and little heart-shaped face. Nor did her plain, warm clothes pose any competition to the ribbons and laces of Lise, whose father kept the draper’s shop. Hence Nicolette and Lise and all their following were disposed to regard her with favour, and soon it was only Marcine and her kind who murmured against her still.
Ursule laughed with the rest, played with the rest, and kept their secrets as safe as any, finding her feet amid friends of her own age with the unthinking ease of a duck that takes to water for the first time. If she failed to excel in her studies, it was not for lack of diligence or application. But happy as she was at school, the part of the day in which she found the most contentment was the evenings in the little rooms above the rue de Carcerie, in the moment when Javert would come in, tired or cold or full of grim joy at the day’s work, and she could watch his face change at the sight of her.
It was not a smile, precisely, nor could it be said to be a softening. But it was the look that told her what she most needed to know, that she was safe and warm and protected by the one to whom she meant the most, and that she could jump up and throw her arms around him without any fear of reprimand.
There was nothing of the doting papa in Javert, still less of the motherly tenderness which had been so sorely absent from her life. Affection from that granite heart perforce leapt out almost unheralded, in the manner of the chin that he kept habitually sunk within his cravat or the eyes that flashed out from the concealment of their heavy brows. Yet affection there was, too deep-rooted now to be denied, unforeseen though it had been along that austere road he had set out to carve in life. It was the fierce, tussling love of packmates or of brothers-in-arms, the two of them challenging each other against the world, in which Ursule for him was less a child than a smaller comrade in a common cause.
He would not permit her to call him by the name of father. It was a falsehood that would have profaned that bond and defiled them both.
At the onset of that December of 1823 there came to Montreuil-sur-mer a figure who disturbed the even tenor into which their lives had settled. He was white-haired, with the casque of a working-man pulled down low across his face and clothes stained by the road; and had they but known it, his coming might have been foretold from the substance of a brief report that had appeared in the newspapers some weeks earlier. But Javert customarily spared no time for newspapers, and in any case he had other concerns engaging his attention.
The report read, in part: “DISPLAY OF CLEMENCY. A convict, in recognition of actions taken the seventeenth inst. in disregard of his own safety on board the vessel Orion, has this day had his sentence commuted and will shortly be set at liberty. The reader will take note of the following interesting circumstances with respect to this individual, which are hereunder set forth...”
But it will be unnecessary to elaborate further upon these circumstances when it is once mentioned that the name upon the papers which the new arrival presented at the mairie was Jean Valjean.
Valjean had presented his confession of his own accord: a point in his favour. He had cooperated to the utmost in his arrest: another point. These facts being taken into consideration, he had received a renewed sentence of five years. Five years of penal servitude, to a man in his fifties, is not necessarily insurmountable, and with the memory of the Bishop before him Valjean had set himself to endure it.
When he saw the sailor fall from high in the rigging of the Orion, he had acted without thinking to throw all his strength and all his skill into the balance in order to save the man’s life. But with that very public rescue once complete and the crowd clamouring for a pardon, he had seen a split-second chance for escape before him and had chosen clear-eyed to let it pass. As a convict on the run he would be a free agent, but at the cost of a lifetime’s lies and concealment. Paroled once more, he could return openly, though it might mean ignominy and shame — and he had made a promise to a dying woman, and entrusted that charge perforce to a man who held him in contempt.
It may be imagined therefore with what motivation Valjean, set at last at liberty, journeyed once more to Montreuil-sur-mer, risking the scorn of those who had known him under a very different guise.
Javert was naturally among the first to be informed of his arrival, and his reaction was one of outrage followed by disquiet. It was unthinkable that this Valjean should seek to return to a town where he had perpetrated such a gross deception upon so many, to trail the taint of the chain gang through the streets in mockery of the law that had condemned him there. And if the convict should seek out Ursule for his attentions as he had sought to favour her worthless mother... the very idea brought a violent revulsion.
And yet... Somewhere in the uneasy depths of his mind — he who until Ursule had never doubted, had never questioned the right path before she came — Javert was driven by a suspicion that in some sort he was indebted to Valjean for her existence in his life. The thought was intolerable, but he could not escape it. Nor could he deny the fact of that pardon stamped across the man’s papers, a clemency by order of the Prefect himself. Who was he, Javert, a mere inspector of police, to set himself up against such an august authority?
Valjean remained discreet, made himself known to no-one, and took a lodging in a mean part of town. And Javert, caught in a paroxysm of indecision, did nothing.
As for Ursule, she retained only confused memories of a kind man with white hair who had taken her from a bad place, dressed her warmly, and given her into her guardian’s care. She had heard little from Javert of the false Madeleine, and none of that to his credit; but her childish understanding of that story showed her nothing there to despise, and a great deal to pity and to like.
It was she who, seeing that her guardian was troubled, coaxed from him the whole tale of Valjean’s return. And it was she who, slipping aside from the market-stalls, contrived the opportunity to encounter Valjean innocently in the street.
The two studied one another with the frank curiosity of those who are scarcely acquainted. Ursule, observing him with covert fascination, found him harmless. Valjean saw that the child was happy and well cared-for, and was content.
In the early days of the year there began to circulate in the salons of Montreuil-sur-mer a rumour that became affronted fact. That outrageous creature who had imposed upon the town’s credulity for so long, that coarse convict who had tried to buy his way into decent society with his so-called prosperity, had been set at liberty. More than that, he had dared to show his face again in their streets. He had been seen. And the inspector of police whose business it was to protect them from such unpleasantness, that unlovely but necessary individual, had not only failed to send the interloper packing, but had unaccountably condoned his obtaining employment. In the police post itself, if you pleased! How was one to look with any equanimity upon that?
Javert himself remained tight-lipped upon the subject. To the local deputy, M. Vaneris, and to those towards whom his duty commanded respect, he made the short rejoinder that he preferred to have the man where he could keep an eye on him. So far as truth went, this was entirely accurate.
He would have been far happier if the convict had had the decency to take himself off from a vicinity where his presence, pardoned or not, could not fail to cause speculation and discomfort all round. But there was no denying that he had no strictly legal basis on which to compel him to do so. And while the full powers of any police agent could render a subject’s life insupportable on the slightest suspicion or none at all, not only his own iron scruples but the clear regard of Ursule held him back from such a course.
The position at the poste de police was a menial one, little better than that of a scullion or floor-washer. But since Valjean appeared obdurately resolved to remain, it ensured at least that one or more of Javert’s own men was within a stone’s throw of him at all times. And Ursule — whose judgement had proved itself acute in ways he could not understand, but despite himself had come to trust — had been adamant that the man should be given a chance.
Valjean undertook his duties quietly and cheerfully, and despite Javert’s suspicious gaze he gave no sign of ill-intent. On the rare occasions when they found themselves obliged to exchange a word, he addressed ‘monsieur l’inspecteur’ with the utmost respect and without a hint of irony, and accepted for himself the most familiar terms of address.
Gradually, week by week, the renewed scandal died down, and in time was forgotten as entirely as ‘Monsieur Madeleine’. It was as if the industrialist and mayor had never existed. All that remained was an old countryman, le père Valjean, moving slowly with his broom or tending the patch of garden behind the low wall with a smile for the children passing by.
Ursule for one was often to be found perched on the wall or curled up on the stone step outside as she waited for Javert, listening to the old man’s tales. From time to time, in a slip of the tongue, Valjean would call her ‘Cosette’. Time had drawn the sting of those memories, and these days the name drew little more than a giggle from her; but she would never let him get away with it. For Ursule as for Javert, a thing once decided upon stayed decided.
In these happy days of 1825, however, as another autumn blustered towards its end, change was afoot for all of them. Still stroking the cat, Ursule gazed up and down the rue de Carcerie one last time, trying to fix in memory the narrow little houses that had become so dear to her and so familiar. She stooped to press a farewell kiss on the smooth purring head, then hurried on the last few steps to thrust open her own street-door and run lightly up to their rooms above, where Javert was frowning down at the assembled archipelago of stoutly-strapped baggage around his feet. She paused a moment on the threshold to watch his swift glance up warm into that recognition that was hers alone, and set her wind-blown clothing hastily to rights before his heavy brows could descend once more in reproof.
The welcome was, as ever, an unspoken one. Javert said only: “You’re late.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” Ursule took off hat and gloves with a smile that was for the greeting and not for the words, and laid them absently down on the empty bookshelf whose volumes were packed now among their few possessions. “I had to say goodbye.”
She crossed the room to lay her head against his sleeve. His other hand moved briefly to stroke her hair, a rare gesture that told her with a pang of remorse that he had been truly worried. She rubbed her cheek against him in mute apology. The southbound stagecoach would be leaving in less than an hour, and at any minute old Valjean was to bring a cart round for the heavy boxes that were to follow after. This was no time to linger over farewells.
It was to the goodwill of M. Chabouillet, by whose influence Javert had obtained his initial posting to Montreuil-sur-mer, that this fresh upheaval in their lives could be attributed. The secretary to the prefect of police had not ceased to take an interest in his protégé; and, the diligence of Javert having risen in his estimation even as the fortunes of the town had of the last few years declined, when the post of inspector at the pleasant and more prosperous town of Vernon had fallen vacant some two months earlier he had proposed Javert for the position.
It was a promotion, and one that would bring them closer to Paris. If it had not been for the child, Javert’s ambition might have aimed higher, at the great metropolis itself. But Paris to his certain belief was no place for a young girl, not even one such as Ursule, and Vernon, only a day’s stage away from the capital, was a fine place of some five thousand souls which could offer ample employment for his talents. After due consideration, he had dispatched his acceptance by the next post and set about concluding his affairs in Montreuil-sur-mer.
Ursule knew nothing more of Paris than that she had there, perhaps, some thing called a father. More than that even Javert, who never shrank from hard truths, could not tell her; but the thought, fanciful though she knew it to be, that this being might some day fall upon her and seek to claim her from the place where she belonged was sufficient to give the child a thorough distaste for the very name of the great city. She remembered that her mother had gone to Paris and had ended in destitution and shame, and accordingly the prospect of Vernon was much more to her liking.
As for le père Valjean who, having made himself indispensable, was to come also, only Ursule had asked his views upon the matter. And he had merely smiled and declined to express an opinion.
The iron wheels of the hired wagon sounded now over the stones outside the window, and Ursule sprang up and darted bird-like around the apartment, for all the world like the busiest of housewives hastening to check that nothing would be left behind. Javert, who had long since made an exhaustive survey of his own to the same effect, watched her with that wry expression in his eyes which in him came far closer to a smile than the tigrish baring of his teeth. It occurred to him to wonder if she remembered that first journey they had made together, away from that slovenly hell-hole at Montfermeil: it was a year or more since he had last thought of those days. It seemed to him now, looking back, to have been a life that belonged to someone else entirely, as if by stages imperceptible he himself had become a different man.
Yet he felt himself in all things essential to be very much the same... Very odd.
Introspection, however, had never much appealed to Javert. He quashed this line of thought firmly, filed it mentally as fruitless and possibly dangerous, and turned to share a nod of acknowledgement with Valjean, who had come quietly up the stairs to assist with the task of loading. In that moment it did not seem strange to either of them.
Ursule caught up her hat and gloves and fairly flew down to the street for the privilege of holding the horse’s head, excited, and one by one the packages and boxes that held the debris of their lives were carried down and laden laboriously onto the waiting wagon. Javert dusted off his hands, watching as Valjean, with a word to the child, swung himself onto the high seat and shook up the reins, beginning the long task of backing and turning the load on the first stage of its slow journey to their new home.
Meanwhile there was a coach to catch. Javert gauged the weight of the tightly-buckled leather bag that held the remainder of his immediate possessions, lifted it in a single movement to rest across his shoulder, and held out his other hand.
“Come, Ursule.”
Small plain face set in an unconscious mirror of determination, Ursule laid hold of her own travelling-bag with both hands and — not without an effort — hoisted it triumphantly, backing away as he reached to take the burden from her. Javert surveyed her for an approving moment, concluded that she could manage, and led off without comment. A few minutes later his tall figure could be seen striding slowly across the dusty square beneath the planes with the child trotting at his side, a proudly independent partner. The stage lumbered round the corner, paused briefly to pick up the voyagers, and was gone.
“I suppose you have been visiting that old Bonapartist again.” Javert regarded the fresh flowers on the breakfast-table with disfavour, as if inspecting them for sedition, and Ursule laughed.
“He’s not an ogre, monsieur. He’s a gardener, and a friend of Père Valjean and the curé. And he likes to give me flowers. He says I remind him of his son when he was little...” She set her cup neatly down on the table, and got up with an air of determination. “He tells such stories about his son. I wish I could see him, but he lives in Paris and never comes here to Vernon. Poor Monsieur Pontmercy misses him terribly.”
Javert, whose business it was to be aware of the whole Pontmercy situation, thought it in the highest degree unlikely that the boy would ever make an appearance. But if he did, Ursule would no doubt make it her business to rebuke him roundly. Allowing himself a certain inward smile at the image, the inspector stretched out long legs and poured out the last of the coffee.
Marius Pontmercy wasn’t going to know what had hit him.
no subject
Date: 2016-02-09 01:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-02-09 10:25 pm (UTC)The most ingeniously simple 'fix-fic' idea I saw for "Les Misérables" was one where the author simply ensured that General Lamarque recovered :-D