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Javert had never expected for Valjean’s grandchildren to like him. Why would they? All logic suggested that they would be terrified by him. And yet, logic was defied— beginning from the very first time he had met Marius and Cosette’s firstborn.
Javert had not the slightest idea of how one was to go about holding a baby when Valjean had handed little Fantine to him, and yet she was charmed immediately, giggling as she played with Javert’s sideburns. And the pattern had continued as that child grew and more came along; they all loved how frankly Javert spoke with them (and, before learning to comprehend language, found fascination in his long hair). He never gained any particular idea of what he was doing, but it did not seem to matter.
No attempt had been made to deceive the children of the nature of Javert’s relationship with Valjean. Well, it was not exactly disclosed to begin with, but after little Jean-Charles (then four years old) caught them kissing in a way that could certainly not be described as brotherly, there was no reason to lie about its significance to him or his sister— after all, nothing about the relationship was illegal, and lies would only accumulate. The children, of course, went home and told their parents; their mother had, of course, known for years, though their father had somehow managed to remain mostly oblivious.
(It soon had to be clarified to Fantine that this was not a fact to be explained to strangers, or to a certain judgemental and gossipy Mme. Duval from church. Nevertheless, Javert was firmly of the opinion that telling them the truth about this had been a net positive.)
And now, all four grandchildren— Fantine, Jean-Charles and the twins— visited Valjean and Javert every other Saturday.
It was a Saturday afternoon, and the back garden of Valjean and Javert’s residence contained Javert and the four children, while Valjean cooked in the kitchen. The twins were entertaining themselves around the garden— Émile was picking flowers, and Jeanne was attempting to befriend a frog. Meanwhile, Javert was sat in the patio chair, entertaining Jean-Charles with simplified versions of anecdotes from work, as Fantine braided his hair (and occasionally remarked upon the anecdotes).
Ever since a weekend two years ago, when Fantine had gone home to her mother and started parroting details of the Beaumont murder case of ‘28 (largely misremembered details, Javert had pointed out, though that had not particularly seemed to help his side of the issue), Cosette had made an ultimatum that Javert would only tell ‘age-appropriate’ stories to the children. This meant the useable subset of his pool of material was vastly reduced, as the children ranged from three to eight years old, but Javert had made it work; the subset still contained a substantial amount of exciting and amusing cases. The one he was currently concluding was a convoluted tale of bourgeois rivalries and deceptions— one of the few instances of that type of case where only minimal omission and euphemism was required to meet Cosette’s criterion.
Jean-Charles was utterly surprised by the twist Javert had just introduced. “The younger M. Nicolas? All this time?”
“Yes— he was the one who stole Mme. Laurent’s heirloom necklace.”
“I knew it!— ever since you said how the gamin gave that vague description!—” Fantine boasted. There had not, in truth, been any particular indication that she had made that deduction, but Javert did not attempt to contradict her.
“But why did he try to frame his brother?”
Ah, this was the good part. “That was the point of the whole thing, really. Remember the older M. Nicolas’ wife, sister of Mme. Laurent— well, the younger M. Nicolas had been courting her back when she was a Mlle. Durand, and therefore, he held a grudge against his brother for marrying her. He supposed that if he were to make it appear that his brother had stolen from Mme. Laurent, it would exact his revenge. And the older M. Nicolas did have a plausible motive, with M. Laurent’s gambling debts to him, and the blackmail. Really, his plan would have worked out, if not for Mlle. Garnier.”
“Who was she again?”
“I’m sure you recall how for a time, we thought the thief was the unmarried Mlle. Durand, who Mme. Laurent had removed from their father’s will?” Jean-Charles nodded. “Well, Mlle. Garnier was a servant of the Laurent household, who we thought was acting as an accomplice to Mlle. Durand— instead, her true involvement was that she had provided a false alibi for the younger M. Nicolas so that the gamin’s description would be interpreted as the older, but she revealed it to have been false after she learned that he had lied to her about something else. So, in the end, we caught him, and the perpetrators of all the other crimes revealed over the process of the investigation.”
“Wow, that’s crazy. You should write a book, Uncle Javert!”
“Oh, I don’t think I would be a very good author.”
“Well, you’re really good at telling stories!”
“Thank you. I think this has been enough stories for today, though. Why don’t you go play with your younger siblings?”
“Okay.” Jean-Charles hopped down from Javert’s knee and set off in the direction of Jeanne.
Jeanne called out to her approaching older brother, “This is my frog!”, indicating the amphibian that, for some reason, had not attempted to escape her.
Jean-Charles asked, “What’s his name?”
“I think she’s a girl. Cecilie.”
“I wanna play with her.”
“Don’t hurt her, though!”
Behind Javert, Fantine spoke. “Your hair’s almost done!”
“And done very well, I can assume.”
Javert then saw Émile approaching, carrying an armful of flowers. “What have you got there?”
“Flowers,” was Émile’s only answer. He reached the patio chair, scaled it with unusual efficiency (despite the absence of blood relation, Émile seemed to have inherited Valjean’s talent for climbing), and began using the flowers to decorate Javert’s hair, while Fantine finished braiding it. Javert did not make any attempt to stop him.
The moment of tranquility was soon interrupted by a scream from Jeanne.
Though Javert was somewhat startled by this, he managed to prevent himself from making any sudden movements, as he did not wish to make the young stylists’ jobs more difficult. “What happened?”
Jeanne indicated Jean-Charles. “He was poking Cecilie, and she ran away!”
“I was not!”
“Well, my eyes were closed, so I cannot vouch for either of you,” said Javert. “But, there are two other possible witnesses here. Émile, did you see what happened?”
“No,” answered Émile, as he carefully balanced a carnation behind Javert’s ear.
“Fantine, did you?”
“Yes, and I think Jeanne was telling the truth.”
“Now, a proper mock-trial could be done— but it would take much longer, so shall we just take Fantine’s testimony as truth?”
Jean-Charles crossed his arms. “...Fine, I was poking the frog. But I didn’t know it would make her run away!”
It was at this moment that Valjean came outside. “Supper is ready!”
Jeanne initially protested. “But Cecilie ran away; I have to go find her!”
Valjean cocked his head. “Cecilie?”
“A frog,” Javert explained.
“Ah.” Valjean then directed his voice back towards the children. “Well, there will be dessert too, if you come in now. If you have been touching a frog, Jeanne, you should wash your hands before eating.”
“But I wasn’t poking her, Jean-Charles was!”
“Well, then Jean-Charles should wash his hands. In any case, you all should come in before the meal gets cold; I have made a cake for dessert.”
Fantine and Émile did the finishing touches on Javert’s hair before hurrying inside; Jean-Charles followed; and finally, seeing all her siblings to have left, Jeanne begrudgingly went inside. Valjean, for a moment, turned his attention to Javert, whose hair was currently in a braid (quite neat, considering it was done by an eight-year-old) and adorned with half the garden’s flowers. “Looking quite handsome there.”
“You should thank Fantine and Émile,” Javert replied, with a smile.
“Well, not for all of it; you’re handsome no matter how your hair is done.”
“I suppose, if that is your opinion, I cannot contest it— but to say it is equally true for you.” Javert walked over to Valjean; they kissed for a moment, during which Javert slipped one flower from his own hair and put it behind Valjean’s ear.
“Well, I suppose we should go inside now, make sure the children actually eat their supper before getting into the cake.”
Luckily, it seemed no mischief had occurred in the half a minute the children had been unsupervised. Valjean’s cooking was served and eaten; it was a meal that everyone present enjoyed. The children chatted away merrily about various topics between bites of the food, and Javert nodded along, flowers still adorning his hair. The cake was even more delicious than the main course; there was some minor drama between the twins regarding whether their respective slices were of equal size, but it was soon resolved, and the children went home to their parents happy, chattering about how much they love visiting ‘Grandpapa Jean and Uncle Javert’.
Javert had never expected for Valjean’s grandchildren to like him— and yet, here he was.