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He was like a light of safety in the uproar of the square and the world around Cosette melted; the boy and his shy glance, the noisy crowd, even the other policemen, all mixed and faded like aquarelle under a drop of water.
Even her father in danger slipped her mind – though for a mere second. Still, it was enough for her eyes to seek and find him, as quickly as only an interested glance could. There was a firmness about his appearance, the line of his back solid like a strong branch; a ridiculous sort of rigidness about it, perhaps. Any other time, Cosette might have giggled, but the assurance radiating off him held her like a magnet. It nipped her girlish laugh in the bud, a strange seriousness awakening inside her.
Her father shied away from him, suddenly frightened – and for a moment she was afraid they were going to run, as they had in the half-faded memories of her childhood, and she would never see the man again. Such a selfish thought, yet it held her in its grip.
Yet then her father squared his shoulders and stepped staunchly towards him. Blood drained out of the officer’s face; her father took him by the arm with gentle firmness before he could do more than twitch away. As he talked, the stranger’s expression changed rapidly; disbelief, astonishment, a hint of anger. She found herself hoping it would turn out well – and still, she could not take her eyes off him.
The man seemed reluctant, tense in his grip and tensing further when her father reached inside his yellow coat. Cosette knew what he would produce before she even saw a peek. The paper had a startling effect on the stranger. Something flickered in his expression and he stared at it for several moments, dumbfounded, then his face settled into a kind of gloomy annoyance. He nodded to her father curtly and gestured for the other officers to seize the band of crooks, obviously eager to leave.
He tipped his hat to her across the square with some delay – awkwardly, as if he knew as little of the world as she did, in spite of his years – and she nodded with all the elegance she could muster, suddenly eager to appear serious, though she felt blush spread under her neckline.
It was that day that Cosette learned his name – Javert.
***
He was still scowling when he visited their house a week later. Cosette did not doubt her father had given him the address; he was free with it, as free as he was with his purse, and she would never cease to admire how he seemed to wish to gather the entire world in his arms.
Seeing the paper in the square seemed to have been insufficient for the inspector, a sort of pedantry that fit quite well with his seemingly inflexible back and the harsh lines on his face. It was strange how easy he was to read, Cosette thought, allowing herself a little smile this time. She hid on the flight of stairs invisible from the door; while not as reclusive as before, her father rarely had guests, and this time, she preferred not to be seen.
Cosette sensed Inspector Javert’s distrust. It had been a good thing her father had had the papers with him that day; he dug them out of his coat to show them again. She did not know what they constituted, though she remembered the circumstances they had come with - that most frightful moment of calls outside the windows, the men in uniform seizing her father and him being able to grab his purse just in time; him returning with his pockets less bulging and his face still pale, clutching that paper in his trembling fingers, kneeling to pull her into a tight embrace.
He never talked of the past, for being safe from danger had not made him more open with her. Yet Cosette had seen scars when his cuffs rode up and remembered the haunted look on his face that had been a constant pattern in her childhood and that fearful night – and sometimes it came upon him still. In those moments he would clutch at his pocket and she would be careful to take his hand and talk of flowers blossoming and her favourite books and fight the clouds from his face with smiles.
He had been freed from what had frightened him and kept them apart from the world before, she knew that much. Perhaps the inspector had played a part in those horrors of his past, though while her father greeted him with a friendly face, he still looked guarded and wary, clutching the papers like an anchor. Javert seemed out of humour, scowling and grumbling in return to polite greetings. There were lines etched deeply into his face, but he left before she could ascertain what they meant.
He did not come back for a long time. Weeks passed. Spring changed to summer and Paris grew restless. In the night that the splatters of rain mixed with the cannons’ noise, Cosette remembered the inspector, though she could not think why.
He stood before their door the next day, between puddles, his uniform rumpled. His customary scowl seemed skewed, half-washed off his face; under it, just fragility and hesitance. Her father admitted him without a word, like many a beggar, but she sensed the years of history between them - this was different.
Cosette retired to her chamber and heard muffled voices carrying over from the living room deep into the night. Half the bookcase lay scattered across the table when she risked a glance the next morning and she smiled.
***
Somehow, he returned again and again. Perhaps her father had asked him to. Perhaps the inspector was as lonely as Cosette thought he was. It was just an inkling in the back of her mind and she felt shy about it, though she had not even spoken it aloud - what gave her the right to pry? But then, she knew she was right.
His shell chipped away with time, his posture seeming more relaxed. Cosette watched her father’s smiles grow more honest and Javert’s manners less rough. Yet, whenever he crossed paths with her, the tenseness returned.
Cosette tried to stay out of the way, despite her curiosity. He was her father’s guest and it was improper to intrude. There was also something else to it: At school, she had grown out of her apprehension of strangers and people did not scare her anymore; but she had never been in a man’s society, safe for her father and Uncle Fauchelevent. She did not know how to behave towards Javert, him being of so much older, having taken his path through life already. Had he been her age, his eyes perceiving the world as hers did, the inexperience which comes with that would have encouraged her.
Yet there was a comfort – for it seemed that his years did not give him much advantage. Whenever they passed each other in the hallway or she opened the door, he seemed to lose most of his composure and it was awkward nods and bows and averted eyes until they parted.
Cosette had observed his respectful and somewhat reserved stance with her father. How strange that she made him lose himself so. And a comfort, perhaps, that a man of his age could be reduced to awkward stumbling, not any better than her, scarcely grown out of her school girl’s dress.
***
Cosette had never had the habit of listening at doors. She told herself she did not, really. Their voices were loud enough if she did not stray far from that part of the house, so that she did not have to be in immediate proximity of the door.
They still argued often, though less fiercely than they had on that first night. The inspector had a knack for constructing chains of logical arguments; yet it seemed to her that he was caught up in his own reasoning, fighting kindness and love in a way she could not understand and she felt her father’s exasperation at this peculiarity as well.
His arguments infuriated her often - but she found herself curious as to the roads that had brought him to the positions he held. Cosette had never had the opportunity to ask him, but even if she had… his person seemed as tightly buttoned up as his uniform. She painted; she knew how layers could multiply and hide each other and the secrets a picture is made of. And it was the depths of Javert that incited her curiosity.
They had spoken of the unrest in the city, too, when they thought she could not hear them. Her father had been trying to keep it from her, as he did with so many things he thought would upset her. Though she had tried to find out more, her attempts had been mostly futile.
Yet by listening to them Cosette had learned that Javert had been present there as part of his duty, taken prisoner by the students. She had caught snatches of conversations about a surprise attack that had allowed him to escape. He sounded weary when he spoke of this, reluctant.
Despite the heat of his arguments, there was a change from the rigid, intimidating man she had seen in the square.
***
Another evening which brought a lit fireplace and more friendly disputes in the living room. She bid them a good evening as she stepped inside, fighting a touch of nervousness. There was a novel lying on top of the piano – if it only vaguely interested her that night, nobody need know.
Out of the corner of her eyes, she saw Javert shift and grumble, looking disconcerted. Her father greeted her with a smile. A few words passed between them, while Cosette tried to make out as much of Javert as she could without looking at him.
Her father seemed to be in a good mood. It warmed her heart to see that he had found something like a friend; though generous with the poor, he had always kept himself in a seclusion that saddened her often.
As the housekeeper was out that day, she gathered her courage - from where, she did not know - and suggested she bring them coffee. Cosette forced herself to calmness as she prepared it. Her father had left the room in the meantime, perhaps in search of a tome, for when she reentered with a tray, she found herself alone with the inspector.
She made an effort to set the china down carefully, but the coffee pot still clattered on the table, and her dress brushed against Javert’s knees. He cleared his throat, flustered, and attempted to draw back his legs.
Before leaving the room, she risked a glance at him that was too quick to discern much. Her face was hot; she hoped he was looking at her, but she did not dare to turn.
***
Romance novels had been forbidden in the convent by the strictest order – but young girls would not be what they are if they did not manage to circumvent the rules. There had been, and probably still were, books circulating in the convent under the thick veil of secrecy. Cosette had been curious, like all of them, and so she had read a bit and listened to a few giggly stories of the world outside the gates, of averted glances and handsome boys, and once even to the story of a kiss, told by a girl who had come into the convent slightly older than most.
Love was painted colourfully in those books; there was the magic of a gaze, the sparks flying and roses blossoming in souls; the men were gallant and brave, the women blushing and lovely, and the courtships as tender and poetic as one could imagine.
“If only I could meet a man like this,” her friend Marie had whispered once fervently in the dark of the dorm room, the worn book hidden safely under a loose plank beneath her bed. Cosette, who had read it too, had contemplated the ceiling, imagining the hero of the novel, his smooth utterances, his elegant features and could only think of how mortified she would be in his presence.
If this was a courtship – and she could scarcely call it so – it was so very different from all those fantasies. He seemed so awkward in a lady’s presence, almost more awkward than she in his. But if he had been eloquent and impressive, would she have dared to even venture near him?
Cosette could not help but be amused at his manners, the flickers in his gaze when he looked away from her and she fancied it gave him difficulty. She had felt the same in the square. Perhaps the hope was far-fetched, perhaps he truly was as austere as he seemed. She could not speak for his heart. Hers was lost, though she tried not to think of it in depth.
If Cosette had ever wished not to be captivated by him, the thought was futile. He was not as handsome as the men in the novels, who had all been similar to each other in one way or another, smooth and perfect. But it had not been perfect lines that had caught her eye, and, had his manners been gallant, she would have been intimidated.
There was something comical in his stance and sometimes a rather disagreeable smirk made his lips quirk upwards when he felt in the right. Yet Cosette had found that a gaze needs an anchor rather than smoothness and when it has been caught, it can find beauty as well. She was fascinated by his silver hair that turned his eyes the shade of rainy skies, but also the depth of his voice and the roughness in the suggestion of a laugh. She wondered if there was something about her he remembered in the same way.
Each time he left, her mood dwindled. It meant an uncertain period of waiting until he called on them again – days, sometimes a week – and for all the routine established, she could not help but be overcome with anxiety that he would never return.
***
It seemed almost destiny to her when she spied his hat lying on the table one day.
“The inspector has forgotten something, papa,” Cosette called out, “I shall bring it to him!” and then rushed down the hallway without waiting for an answer.
Javert had scarcely gone out of the door. It was summer again, the days long, and the sun was but setting, hazy twilight beginning to spread in the garden.
She pressed the hat into his hands. He bowed stiffly and she would have laughed if she had not suddenly known that she would seize this chance and, feeling faint from the pulse drumming out in her ears, Cosette stood up on tiptoes and kissed him.
It was a queer feeling, her mouth touching another’s. Books had told her that this was supposed to feel like fireworks in her heart; it did not. But she had never been this close to somebody else before, and his clean scent, of which she had previously only caught whiffs, made her shiver; his beard scraped against the skin of her jaw. She allowed herself to revel in the moment before drawing back. Their lips stuck together slightly.
Javert let out a breath as if somebody had knocked him square in the chest.
“Mademoiselle…” was all he said when he found his voice again, choked and rough. He stared at her, his eyes wide. They were still closer than proper. Cosette’s gaze strayed to his lips, parted in surprise, and she could only think of how she wished to kiss him again, to run her fingers through his hair and draw him even closer.
Cosette did not. She threw him a trembling smile instead and bolted back inside the house before the giddy happiness in her chest could be replaced by doubts and regret. Yet for now she felt elated, the thoughts of consequences and the qualms about her father but simmering on the edge of her mind.