“Give it to Mademoiselle Daaé. She will come to her senses and revoke her charge.”
Leonhard stared at the envelope for a moment, then glanced around again, wishing the room were not so poorly lit. For some reason, he didn’t feel in any danger, but he still didn’t like it.
He started to demand again that the voice identify itself, but stopped; it wouldn’t do any good. “I hope you’re right,” he said, pocketing the letter.
The voice didn’t reply, and Leonhard left the room.
He hurried back to the stage and was relieved to find that the diva was still there, talking to the vicomte and the managers. Meg was desperately speaking to a stagehand, but she seemed to be having an impossible time. Most of the stagehands had already left, and Camescasse had disappeared—he was probably at his meeting by now—but it was just as well; Leonhard didn’t think he could explain the strange letter to his superior.
“Oh, it was just terrible,” Mademoiselle Daaé was saying. “He never even touched me—he was barely even there—but I was so frightened!”
“Don’t fret, my sweet, if I cannot exact justice myself, then I shall have him prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law!” declared the vicomte.
“Excuse me!” Leonhard broke in. “I was instructed―”
“I already filled out a statement and gave it to that other man,” the diva informed him dismissively.
“No, no, it’s not that—I was instructed to give this to you.”
She accepted the envelope and extracted the letter curiously. When she saw its contents however—read so quickly that it only could have been a single sentence—her beautiful skin turned a cold, ashen color.
“What is it, my pet?” demanded the vicomte, trying to take the paper from her. She refused to give it to him, holding it against her chest—though she looked as though she regarded the thing as a particularly large and frightening spider—and stared at the floor.
She started to speak, but her voice came out as a squeak. “I—I—I wasn’t kidnapped. I made it all up.”
Meg shrieked again and ran to stand by Leonhard to hear the diva’s words.
“That man—whatever his name is―”
“Hulbert,” said Meg, just as Leonhard, amazed at the sudden reversal the mysterious letter had evoked, said, “Tannenbaum.”
“—is innocent,” finished Mademoiselle Daaé, dejected and embarrassed, but still firm.
The vicomte’s face was an unrecognizable mask of shock. “You—you can’t be serious!”
“I made it up,” she repeated.
“Why would you lie to me?!”
“Because—because I wanted a few days off, but I was afraid I’d be fired if I admitted it, so I made up a story!”
“Good God!” exclaimed the managers together, unable to believe it any more than the vicomte.
“Christine, my precious, how could you―”
“I didn’t mean to make such a big commotion, but you were so gallant, and wonderful, protecting me, that I couldn’t tell you the truth!”
That seemed to calm the vicomte down a bit, but the managers were still outraged. They continued to voice protests which the diva replied to in increasingly shrill tones, until Leonhard finally interrupted with,
“Mademoiselle! Monsieur Tannenbaum is being escorted to headquarters as we speak!”
“Oh! Oh, of course! Quickly, lead the way, monsieur—I must revoke my statement at once!”
As the Prevote and the two ballerinas rushed towards the Garnier’s main entrance, Leonhard cast a glance behind him, wondering just what being, seeming to share his desire for justice, had just spared an innocent man a prison sentence.
Christine closed the door just as quietly as she possibly could, inching it shut ever-so-slowly, but she still flinched when the mechanism uttered an audible click as it closed. She held absolutely still for a full minute, but there was no sound that Erik had heard; there was no sound at all from the room or the mirror or the tunnel beyond, just the ordinary bustle through the halls beyond the treacherous door.
She turned and took tiny, silent steps across the minefield of a floor—so filled with squeaks that it was impossible to cross without alerting the entire opera house of her presence—towards the vanity, where her makeup was located. She had taken her shoes off in the hallway, so her feet made little sound upon the wood as long as she avoided the creaky spots.
She clapped her hand over her mouth as she felt something sharp stick in the soft, vulnerable arch of her foot. Trying hard to keep from crying out in agony and cursing Loki, the trickster god, for placing a splinter in her path, she ignored the horrific pain and hobbled towards the vanity.
Finally, after the longest eternity of her life—and with minimal squeaks from the floor—she was within reach. She mentally congratulated herself as she seized the cheap tin of face powder. She had gone without makeup all morning, but she hadn’t been able to take it any longer and had worked up the courage to sneak into her dressing room. Meg was absolutely furious with her (apparently she had a thing for that hulking German fellow), and as bad as that was to endure, Erik’s response would likely be worse. She was so afraid of what Erik would say about her lies and false accusation that she had been avoiding her dressing room for all of yesterday and this morning.
Accusing that stagehand had been a cruel and stupid thing to do, but what else could she have done—told the world that the Angel, whom she had thought was a monster but who really turned out to be the Angel again, disguised as the dreaded Phantom of the Opera, had made off with her in the night? Everyone would think she was crazy, and Raoul would refuse to rest until he had killed the Angel, and no matter who won, she would lose out on one of the keys to her future.
At least, she hoped that he was the Angel. She felt her conviction wavering, and began to repeat to herself, “Erik is the Angel” several times until her doubts subsided. He had to be. He just had to. If he wasn’t, it would mean that her father was wrong—that she was in the clutches of a fiend—that she had been tricked and used—
But it doesn’t matter, she told herself angrily, because he is the Angel!
She grabbed a little tin of blush, but—unwilling to move any closer than an arm’s length to the vanity—she was unable to find the powder puff that went with it in all the clutter. After a moment of frantic searching she gave up, figuring that she could just as easily apply the powder with her fingers. She grabbed a few more necessities and clutched them to her chest, wondering if she should put it all on now or leave and hope she could find another mirror. It was better to leave immediately, she decided, rather than court a chance meeting with the disapproving Angel. Oh gods, when she had caught sight of the words on that paper, her heart had almost stopped….
Holding the tins very carefully so as not to drop them, she slowly backed up a few steps, until, close to the door, she turned around.
“Erik!” she shrieked, dropping all the makeup containers in her fright. A cacophony of multi-hued powders spilled all over the floorboards, and she cried out furiously as her precious cosmetics were lost forever to the disgusting, dirt-ridden floor.
“Christine,” he said, looking very displeased as he leaned against the wall by the door, where he had apparently been standing when she had come in.
“I was just coming to see you!” she said, talking loud and fast, as she always did when she was upset.
“Is that so?”
“Yes, and I was going to apologize for my stupidity and beg your forgiveness!”
“Beg my forgiveness?”
“Yes! And—bow down to your—boundless wisdom—and knowledge—and promise that I would never do anything so stupid again!”
Her words didn’t change his expression or his stance, tall, straight, arms folded. “Shouldn’t you be apologizing to Hulbert Tannenbaum?”
“Um, yes, that was my plan—apologize to you and then straight to Monsieur Tannenbaum!” She smiled brilliantly at him and darted towards the door
.
She tugged the doorknob fruitlessly, then looked up and saw Erik’s hand holding the door shut. “I just want to know why you would feel the need to deprive an innocent man of his honor and his livelihood,” said Erik.
She stared at her feet in shame, unable to formulate any kind of reasonable response. Then a pang from her foot supplied her with a plan.
“Oh! Oh, my foot!” she cried, clutching it desperately in a sudden show of pain. “I stepped on a splinter a minute ago and oh, it hurts so much!” She contorted her face and summoned tears to her eyes as she looked up at Erik pitifully, thrilled to see that her act was working.
With a sigh that let her know he saw through her ploy, he helped her to a chair and lifted her foot—with great whimpering on her part—onto a dusty, torn ottoman and knelt to inspect it.
She continued to sob as he dusted the various cosmetic powders from her foot and lifted it into the light. “This isn’t a splinter,” he said, after a moment. “It’s a sliver of ceramic, if I’m not mistaken.”
She squealed in agony and redoubled her cries, playing up the wound for all it was worth in the hopes of avoiding the Tannenbaum issue altogether. Perhaps it had sliced a nerve or something and she would have to go to a doctor. Maybe it would get infected and Erik would be so busy worrying about her that he would completely forget about the whole thing. Come to think of it, she could use this as an excuse to get out of dancing and choreography completely in future operas! Yes, the tragically lamed diva, unable to walk, but with a voice so heavenly that—
She howled loudly as Erik pulled out the sliver, realizing belatedly that she hadn’t felt a thing. As he held it up to the gas lamp to deduce what it was from, she was disappointed to see that it was pathetically tiny. She probably wouldn’t be able to get away with much with such an insignificant little thing like that.
“It’s porcelain,” he said. “Did you break something?”
She opened her mouth to say no, but then closed it suddenly when she remembered that, a few months ago, she had taken an ugly little porcelain cat out of Carlotta’s dressing room and smashed it in revenge for a particularly cruel insult about her singing. She’d thought she had swept up all the pieces. “Um, no,” she said blandly, feigning puzzlement. “I don’t have any idea what it could be from.”
“You shouldn’t walk in here without shoes,” he reprimanded sternly, depositing the sliver in the wastebasket. “It’s so cluttered that it’s dangerous.”
“Yes, I’ll keep that in mind,” she agreed hastily. If she didn’t do something quickly, he would remember about chastising her. “Have you seen the managers’ office? It’s absolutely amazing! All the furniture! It’s so beautiful that even the gods must be jealous!”
Erik frowned. “Yes, I’ve seen it. The furniture is all rosewood, mostly from the Rococo Revival, and an absolutely absurd waste of opera funds.”
“But it’s so beautiful!”
“So you think it’s reasonable that they’ve pillaged the Comte de Chagny’s generous donations—and therefore the props, costumes, and salaries for the opera—for their own private benefit?”
She gasped as she realized that it was Raoul’s money and possibly her paycheck that had bought it all. “That’s not fair!”
“No, it’s not.”
She could see that he was about to speak again and feared that it was about Tannenbaum. “I decided to take the part of Ilia!” she blurted hastily.
“Oh—I’m pleased to hear that. You’ll make a wonderful Trojan princess.” His smile was both fond and proud. It bothered her to think what his face must look like contorted into a smile. She again forced herself to stare into his eyes in an effort to keep from thinking about his ugliness. It failed miserably, and she had to turn away. He was an Angel—she just had to remember that.
“Will you tell me about her character?” she asked. “I’m sure you know everything about her and the opera and I want to play her well.”
As he started to tell her about the fall of Troy, she congratulated herself on her brilliance; she’d also managed to make him happy, and perhaps he’d even agree to skip their lesson now. But after a few minutes of listening about Greece and Troy and some wooden horse, she started to regret her plan, no matter how brilliant it had been. But if it got her out of hearing about Tannenbaum, it was worth every boring moment.
Chapitre Quinze: Les Fraises et le Filigree
Christine did a few pirouettes, watching with joy how her dress flared and sparkled in her full-length mirror. It was absolutely beautiful! The peach-colored silk shone in the morning light, seeming like a pink aurora borealis as the brilliant highlights, like cherry blossoms, and dark cerise shadows leapt and danced across the fabric. From the low, off-the-shoulder neckline hung a black swath of gossamer, embroidered with ebony flowers and long, curling vines; it fell all the way down to her elbows, obscuring the simple bodice underneath. In contrast to all this elaborate design, the skirt of the dress was simple, with only a few ruffles at the base. The front of the bodice was crested with a vast, pink satin rose. She knew there was a similar rose to be pinned in the hair of the wearer, but she hadn’t been able to find it when she had borrowed the costume from the costumery.
When she was a child, she had enjoyed sneaking into the rooms where the old costumes were stored, simply to admire the beautiful, expensive gowns. Now that she could fit in some of them—though the most elaborate were, sadly, made for Carlotta, and therefore far too voluptuous for her—it had become a clandestine pastime to slip one off its rack and sneak it back to her dressing room to try it on. It was a sweet dream, to admire herself, looking so beautiful and regal, and pretend that she was a wealthy noble lady, and not a penniless ballet rat. But soon—when she married Raoul—she would be wealthy, and noble, and everything she had ever dreamed.
Suddenly she heard an audible click, and her reflection slid away out of the mirror’s frame, replaced by a man in a plain black suit. “Good morning,” he said. She tried not to look at him. He might be an angel, but by the Gods, he was hideous. And even if he weren’t so hideous, she still wouldn’t have wanted to see him—it had only been two days since she had stupidly accused that trollish stagehand of kidnapping her, and besides, she didn’t want to see either Raoul or Erik until she had worked out a strategy for keeping Erik’s guidance while allowing Raoul to court her. And besides that, what could she say to Raoul, after she had so rudely run away from his affections?
Though he did not comment on the gown and the childish reason for its appropriation from the costume rooms, she felt an uncomfortable blush rise into her cheeks and hurriedly invented, “Oh, hello, um, I just wanted to try on my new costume—for Idomeneo. Anyway, it fits nice so I’ll just return it now.” She turned to flee, but his voice stopped her, so deep, so soothing, despite his visage:
“I thought you’d be happy to know that, in light of your promotion to diva, the managers have decided to disregard the complaints they’ve been receiving and give you exclusive right to the chapel downstairs.”
“Oh—good!” As she turned to look at him, her gaze locked on his face, but she forcefully reminded herself that he was the Angel (at least, she hoped he was an angel—she hardly dared to hope, but she still couldn’t bring herself to believe that she had been duped by a monster), and the sick feeling receded.
“Uh—yes, that’s marvelous!” she continued hurriedly. “Can you believe those ballet rats—and the chorus rats too—would make such a fuss just because I want Father’s memorial to be a permanent fixture of the chapel?” Lost in the sweetness of victory, she forgot about her horror. “This will teach them,” she said, smiling viciously.
“Don’t call them ‘rats,’ please, Christine,” beseeched Erik, his voice pained. He appeared not to notice that this dress, obviously northern European, could not possibly be in Idomeneo, which was set in—where was it Erik had said?—Crete, right after some war in Troy. (She wasn’t sure just when that was, but it must have been at l
east a few centuries ago—Madame Giry had explained to her that the soldiers were carrying spears because firearms hadn’t been invented yet. It seemed awfully stupid to Christine for anyone to start a war before inventing decent weapons.)
In any event, the Angel didn’t notice, which was a very good thing; she didn’t think something as heavenly, as divine as an angel would be able to understand the reason behind her temporary pilfering of a costume.
“Why can’t I call them rats?” she wanted to know, glancing at her reflection and adjusting a loose bauble in her hair. “That’s what they are.”
“You were one yourself until quite recently.”
“Well, I’m different. They’ve never liked me—I can’t figure out why; I mean, I’ve said a few less-than-nice things about one or two of them, but that was only after they didn’t like me first.”
“Could it have anything to do with your announcement during a rehearsal that they were all blind fools to deny the existence of ‘the gods?’”
“That was years ago—they couldn’t possibly still remember that.”
Apparently the Angel realized he couldn’t win the argument, because he changed the subject: “You really should thank the managers for their generosity.”
Busy with her hair, she didn’t bother to turn to face him. “What for? They did it because you told them to.”
“No, as a matter of fact, I had nothing to do with it.”
She looked at him now, mildly surprised. “Then why did they give it to me?”
“Apparently they were quite moved by your devotion.”
“Devotion?”
“Madame Giry told them about your visits to the chapel—every night without exception—to light a candle for him.”
“Oh.” She turned back to the mirror and resumed arranging her hair. “Yes, every day for the last—”
She stopped suddenly. “No, that’s not right,” she said slowly. “It was that way for years, yes, but lately… I haven’t been down there since…since… Oh, gods!” she exclaimed, dropping the brush she was holding. “I haven’t entered the chapel for over a week! I’ve neglected him!” Frantically she grabbed a book of matches and raced for the door.