A/N – My first Phantom fic – be kind!
Opera Populaire.
22nd December 1871.
As the last candle reached it's end, and the flame guttered out, Adèle Gabriel woke with a start.
Her cheek rested on the work table before her, cushioned by the velvet that would soon be a tunic for young Piangi, the covering tenor. By rights, the blasted thing should have been already cut out, but like a fool, she had fallen asleep. She was only grateful that she had not drooled on the precious material – beside Piangi's, she had several more items to make from the same piece of cloth.
Cautiously, Adèle got to her feet. It had been a slow and creeping thing, but she finally was beginning to feel every one of her sixty-three years in her bones; a lifetime of being crouched over a sewing table had not helped in the slightest, and sleeping at her post only made it worse, it seemed.
Her back and shoulders cracked when she stretched them, but she felt a little relief, and searched about her for a candle that had not been used up entirely. It was difficult to locate in the dark, but Adèle knew every inch of her workroom in the Opera Populaire, and her step was confident and assured. A fresh candle lay upon the shelf in the furthest store cupboard and the box of matches, sensibly, was at the candle's side.
The room once more bathed in weak light, Adèle looked about her. She had been alone in the room since early evening, when she had sent her staff and young charges home to their suppers and their beds. Madeleine, her daughter and strong right arm, had been reluctant to leave her but Adèle had insisted, promising to bring herself home in a few hours time. Well, if the burned out candles were any indication, far more time had passed than she had intended. Madeleine would be worried.
It was too late for any sensible woman to travel home, even one as old and surefooted as Adèle Gabriel. She would have to send a message and retire to her own chamber, the one she was granted along with the job of Wardrobe Mistress but seldom used. It would do adequately for tonight, anyhow. Adèle began towards the door – a groom was always awake in the stables the whole night through and he could send one of the stable boys to her home, to assure them of her safety. It was no so far for a healthy young man to run there and back.
At the workroom door, Adèle stopped to don her cloak. If the snow which had been falling that morning had laid, it would be bitter cold outside. She caught sight of her reflection in the mirror on the back of the door and tutted. Her hair had been pulled from the bun and her rouge was all but gone. She was not a vain woman by any means, but there had to be standards. She had a certain reputation to uphold. Well, there was not much to be done now. A scarf tied over her hair wold have to suffice.
The corridors were quiet, everyone long gone to their beds. Adèle did not like the opera house at night, despite many of her colleagues saying they found it most peaceful. To her it seemed a dead thing, one which should be brimming with noise and life. Stagehands should be barrelling through with props and scenery, the ballet girls should be giggling around every corner, the saws should be sawing and voices should be raised in song. She could not stand the silence.
A vicious wind almost blew her candle out when she pushed at the heavy door which led out to the stables. She had been right about the snow – it lay almost six inches deep and came over the top of her boots when she stepped out. It was quiet out here too, the whole city seeming in hibernation. The crisp air caught in her throat and she shivered, pulling her cloak closer around her. It was a terrible night to be out, that much was true.
A light burned in the stable, warm and inviting in the dark. The stable was a reassuring, unchanging sort of place. Life at the opera house came and went but the stable always smelled of hay, warm horse bodies and oats. The horses always whickered in greeting and the grooms were always friendly, if you treated them well in return.
"Maman Gabriel? Is that you?"
"It is me, Pierre," she said, hurrying forwards into the light, "I did not mean to startle you."
"You didn't, Maman. What are you doing here?"
Maman Gabriel. Several of her apprentices had once began to call her that as an affectionate nickname and somehow it had spread to many of the younger staff. Years later, the name had stuck.
"I fell asleep in the workroom, would you believe it. What time is it?"
"Almost midnight," Pierre said, peering at her though his spectacles. He was such a young man, but his glasses made him seem much older than he really was.
"Almost midnight, mon dieu. Pierre, would you send one of your lads to my home, to tell them I will stay here tonight. I will make it worth his while."
"Of course. Michele has not long gone up to bed. He'll be happy to run there and back. Can I help you with anything else? Do you have wood for your fire?"
"I'm sure I do, thank you. Send Michele to me in the morning and I will give him his reward."
"I will. Good night, Maman."
"Good night, dear boy."
Adèle turned, intent on her bed and the log fire. She realised her mistake then – the door she had come out of had not been propped open, and she would need to go all the way around to the service door on Rue de Garnier.
Cursing her own stupidity, she ensured the little candle was safe and stepped wearily around the stables, away from that safe place and into the darkness. She stayed close to the outer wall, boots crunching in the snow, and all was still until she was almost at the door.
She thought at first it might be one of the opera cats, growling into the night, but the sound turned to a low moan, coming from somewhere on her right, and she stopped dead. A languishing moan of pain, she was sure.
Carefully, she took her hand from the wall and made towards the noise. There, in the middle of the inner courtyard, was a shadowy shape.
A man, huddled on the ground.
He was tall, very tall, but that was all she could tell about him. She did not know anyone who worked at the opera who was of that height.
He wore a fedora and a cloak that covered him completely in his prone position and, when Adèle took a few steps closer to him, she recoiled in shock – he was lying on snow stained red with blood.
"Hello?" she said, forgetting her fear and going to his side, "Can you hear me?"
Propping the candle carefully in the snow, Adèle knelt beside him and peeled back the collar of his cloak.
Her heart stopped, she was sure it must have.
The man wore a mask, a leather mask that covered half his face.
It was him.
He was real.
Adèle had not believed the stories, the whispers about the ghost who haunted the opera, the man in the mask.
"This building is not old enough to have a ghost," she would laugh, every time one of her charges heard the story for the first time and tried to ask her about it, "But I am too old for such silly stories. Scare one another if you like, but I want no part in it."
But here he was. No ghost, that was for sure, but a man who could bleed like any other. A man who could die out here, if no one helped him.
"Hello?" Adèle whispered again, laying the back of her hand to his bare cheek.
"No more," he gasped, jerking away, "No more, please."
Adèle did not think somehow that he was talking to her. His voice trembled and his eye, the one she could see, was screwed up tight.
"Can you stand?" she said, "I cannot lift you, not alone. Dear boy, can you stand?"
He did not respond and she wondered if he had lost consciousness again, when suddenly he pushed himself to his knees, crying out as he did. Quickly, before he could collapse, Adèle caught him under the arm and helped him to his feet. He leaned heavily on her, so heavily that she worried she would pitch them both to the ground. An arm around his waist, she walked back towards the door and willed her feet to carry him.
By some miracle, they did. At the door to her room, Adèle did not know how they had made it. It was ice cold but the log box was full, as she had remembered. Depositing the man on the bed, she hurried to the fireplace and lit it, urging the tiny flame on until it caught. Stripping off her cloak, she turned to her charge.
He was crouched over, curled up on himself but, thankfully, unconscious once more. She removed his hat and placed it on the chair, drawn to the mask once more. She could not afford to dwell though; somewhere, there was a bleeding wound that needed tending.
Adèle was not unused to undressing men, but it had been a long time since she had done in a role other than that of Wardrobe Mistress. She imagined that if she were a younger, sillier woman, she would be blushing. Rolling him onto his back, she untied the cloak from around his neck and pulled it from under him, dropping the heavy, wet thing on the floor. His suit jacket was beautifully tailored, gold thread worked into the lapels and the cuffs. It fit him perfectly. Adèle pulled him to a seated position, so she could remove the jacket and the matching waistcoat underneath. Blood seeped through his white shirt, gathering around his middle. She threw his jacket and waistcoat on the floor, tearing the shirt away in her haste to find the source of the blood.
The poor man. He was a mess, that much was true. Adèle had only seen wounds like this once before, when she was very young and one of the butcher's boys had been caught trying to take a bit too much from his intended's sister. That boy had been beaten, by the girl's brothers and father. This man had been too, beaten to within an inch of his life. Dark bruises blossomed on his chest and back, boot-shaped bruises. The eye she could see was swelling up, his ear bloody and the hair matted with it. The blood on his shirt was coming from a wound on his side.
Stabbed! He'd been stabbed.
Using the tattered remains of his shirt to wipe away the mess, her own hands trembling, Adèle leaned down to inspect it carefully. It was not bleeding so badly now – perhaps the cold had slowed it down a little. The man would live, she thought. He would damn well live.
Collecting his clothes, she hung them to dry in front of the fire, and threw another log on the hearth. The man was shaking now, the cold catching up with him, and Adèle covered him with all the blankets she could find in the room, thankful that Madeleine had insisted on making the place comfortable, should she ever have to use it.
It still wasn't enough.
"I'll be back," she said, "Hold on, and I'll be back."
Rushing towards the workroom, she thought for a moment that she should call for a doctor. She did not know so very much of medical matters, after all. Something tugged at her though, the picture of that mask imprinted on her mind, and she knew she could not do that to the man, whoever he was. He'd cringed when she touched him.
No more, he had begged, no more please.
The boot prints on his chest and back, the wound in his side.
No man who wore a mask was at ease with his place in the world.
There were no blankets in the workroom, nothing of the like, apart from the velvet she had been working with. Well, that would have to do, costumes be damned. It was heavy, and it was warm. She picked up her sewing box too, and hurried back.
He was still shivering but his eyes were open, tracking her across the room, strange and glowing eyes, more gold than any other colour. Like a cat.
"Mother?" he whispered, "Mother, have you come to me?"
Delirious.
"Not your mother, dear boy. Just a friend."
"I have no friends."
"Hush," Adèle covered him with the velvet, "Hush now."
She went to the dresser and took out the bottle of bourbon that she kept there, pouring a glass almost to the brim.
"You must drink," she said, "All of it. You must sleep, dear boy."
He did not argue, raising his head to help her pour it down his throat. His neck was hot, sweat pouring from his face, and he almost choked on the drink, but he got it down in the end.
It did not take long for him to sleep once more.
From her sewing box, Adèle took a needle and a length of thread. She had sewn up wounds before, drafted as a nurse during the Prussian occupation, and had hoped never to do it again. The first man she had sewn up took a wound to his leg that almost cut in half, but the surgeon had simply looked and passed it over to her. Adèle had almost fainted as the first stitch went in, but an older nurse at her side had held her hand steady and talked her through the whole thing. The soldier had, somehow, remained awake the entire time, endured the pain with no screams although she could see him quivering with the effort to not cry out and scare her. After that first, terrible time, she had sworn to always knock a man out, whether she had to hit him on the head or get him blind drunk. However many wounds she had stitched, she always saw that brave young man before her, willing himself to hold his tongue.
The things men did to one another never failed to disgust her.
Pulling the blankets back, Adèle steadied herself and splashed more of the bourbon into the wound. The man did not react and she knew her time was now. Wiping her needle in an alcohol dampened cloth, she threaded it and, with no hesitation, made the first stitch.
The only sound in the room was the crackle of the fire and the man's laboured breathing. He probably had a broken rib, that much she was sure of.
Nothing to be done for such a thing, except rest.
He was lucky really. Once the fever passed, he would live.
The bleeding stopped, Adèle collapsed at his side. He was terribly thin, his chest almost concave, and his skin was yellowing, like old parchment. He was not so old though, not old enough to have skin that colour. The half of his face that she could see looked to be around forty years old, perhaps a little younger. With a cool cloth, she bathed his swollen eye and cleaned his bloody ear.
Stroking his cheek soothingly, her other hand strayed to his mask. Sweat was still pouring from him and pooling around the join. It could not be comfortable for him; the skin around the mask was red and raw already, worn smooth with wear. Promising herself she would only remove the mask for a moment, to wipe the sweat from his face, Adèle gripped the edge of it. Doubt curled in her belly, biting doubt and she took her hand away. On cue, as though he had been waiting, the man groaned and swiped at his face.
With a deep breath, before she could change her mind, Adèle pulled the mask away.
She was not prepared for what was underneath, and she was glad the man was sleeping, so he did not see her face.
A deformity. A terrible deformity, and she knew why he had been beaten so badly, why he bore scars of injuries that had come before. Few people could see such a thing and think well of it. People were not so good as to not see the devil in another.
He had no nose, only a dark hole where one should have been, and his cheek was sunken. The lip was bloated, and the whole thing was covered by paper thin skin that barely covered the bones.
Running her fingers gently over his cheek, Adèle felt tears springing to her eyes and spill down her own cheeks. This poor ruin of a man had been beaten for this, she just knew it, a face that he could not change. He wore a mask and stalked the Opera Populaire because of this, the mark of a cruel God.
"Oh dear boy," she whispered, wiping her own tears from his face, "Oh you poor, poor dear boy."
She picked up the cloth and wiped the sweat from his face, cleaning the inside of the mask at the same time. She did not want to replace it, but she did not want him to wake and find himself exposed. He was vulnerable enough as it was.
Tenderly, so as not to hurt him, she slipped the mask back into place. He was not shivering, at least not so badly, and she hoped he was coming out of it now. Adèle had no idea of the time but it felt like she had been awake for days and days.
She was already sitting beside him; it did not take long to tuck herself under the velvet blanket and lean back on the wall, closing her eyes. He would be confused when he woke, and she wished to be near to him. She did not think that there had been many people close to this man, in his life.
Between her own fatigue and the warmth of the room, she was asleep in moments.
She dreamed of a deer, a beautiful deer, hunted to exhaustion and torn apart by dogs. The deer cried out – no more. No more, please.
Adèle did not know at first what woke her, but she was tucked into bed and the fire was burning low. From outside, she could hear the sounds of the opera house; the clatter of plates in the café, the distant thunder of the rolling scenery, the shrieks of the ballet girls. Then she heard it, the knock at the door that had woken her.
"Maman? Maman, are you awake?"
Madeleine.
The man.
The man was gone.
"I am, my love. A moment!"
There was nothing, no trace of the man left. His clothes were gone, even the shirt, and her sewing kit had been tidied away. If it were not for the velvet laid out on the bed, she would almost believe that the whole thing had been part of her dream.
"Maman, I brought you fresh clothes," Madeleine called, "Do you want them?"
"Of course," Adèle opened the door and took the bag, "Remind me never to sleep here again. I had an awful night."
"You do look terribly tired. I'll bring some coffee to the workroom."
"Thank you, my love."
Once she had dressed, she pulled back the bed covers and was almost relieved to find the bloodstained sheet. She had not imagined the whole thing.
He had been here.
He was real.
1879.
"A beautiful service," the priest smiled gently, taking Madeleine Gabriel's hand, "Your mother would have loved it."
"Thank you, Father," she murmured, "Would you care to look at the flowers with me?"
"Of course."
Her mother had been a wonderful woman, so kind, and the evidence of her popularity lay here, in the mounds of flowers that had been sent in her memory. The very largest was a bouquet of white roses. Maman had loved white roses; for the last few years of her life, she had received a single white rose, once a year, a few days before Christmas. Madeleine had teased her about an admirer but Maman had never said a word, just smiled and pressed the petals between the pages of her Bible.
The bouquet had a card attached, and Madeleine wondered if they came from the same person. If they did, the card did not give much away.
Thank you, dear lady. Erik.
"Erik?" Father Jean read over her shoulder, "Who is Erik, child?"
"I do not know. A friend, I suppose. Maman did like to collect waifs and strays."