Orders, Warnings, Lunatic Demands
II
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"Mademoiselle Daae, one moment. We would like a word with you."
Christine flinched at hearing Monsieur Firmin's patronizing tone and turned to see Monsieur Andre's lascivious eyes skim her form as both managers approached the empty corridor she'd taken. She wished she were not so scantily clad though she wore the same costume as all the other dancers. Yet the manner in which they stared made her feel as if she wore nothing but skin! Ever since the morning they arrived at the Opera Populaire, when she danced in her harem costume and sensed them ogle her as if she were a prime cut of beef fit for their consumption, Christine employed any excuse never to be alone in a room with them. They may be the new owners of the theater, but they did not own her!
She barely curbed an audible groan. The day had started out so well, too. Though her Angel had yet to visit her dreams again with his song, she had persuaded him to continue her lessons. And, (though she felt she must pinch herself to acknowledge the truth), he was actually taking her to the Bal Masque! Surely even the managers, with their double-edged words and furtive expressions could not deflate her happiness.
She was mistaken.
"Messieurs, excusez moi, I am late for ballet practice."
"Has Madame Giry not told you of your advantageous change in circumstances?" Monsieur Firmin's smile below his twitching mustache was disparaging. "We have decided with the next opera we produce to feature you as the lead."
"Due to your acclaimed success in Hannibal, of course. And other laudable assets you clearly possess." Again, Monsieur Andre's gaze swept from her white clinging corset and voile tutu, down to her stocking legs and ballet slippers.
She swallowed over her unease, not failing to notice they made no mention of her teacher or his part in her triumph. "Yes, Madame has informed me. I am very grateful for the opportunity, gentlemen, but I really must be going …"
"There is no need for you to engage in further dance instruction." Andre stopped her, blocking her exit with his black walking stick before she could successfully make her escape. "You are no longer to take part in the chorus. With your newly acquired role, you must further develop your voice in training."
No more ballet? Troubled, she frowned. She had always enjoyed those hours with her best friend and would miss taking part in the classes, rigorous though Madame Giry made them. "My teacher is well aware of my change in status …"
She did not add, "Since he alone orchestrated this rise in my career," though she wished to. Oh, how she wished to put these "scrap metal" men in their place! To do so, however, could threaten her own. She managed what she hoped passed for a pleasant but remote smile.
"… And our lessons are continuing as planned, as they always have," she finished aloud. "Please address my teacher through Madame Giry with any concerns or instructions you may have for me."
"Your teacher," Andre sputtered, "You don't mean the Opera Ghost?!"
"He does have a name." She hesitated revealing it, at once realizing that had Erik wished them to know, he would have told them. They regarded her oddly and she realized it wasn't so many weeks ago when she informed these same managers that she had no knowledge of his name. "You may call him Maestro," she finished weakly, "as he is certainly a great teacher. A true genius."
"But we understood he had retired his services to you," Firmin said, his tone mystified, at the same time, disgruntled.
"It was only a misunderstanding, which has since been resolved." She shrugged the matter off as inconsequential. "He is very much my teacher and will remain so as long as I'm here." Hearing the words expressed brought a faint smile to her lips and a warm glow to her heart.
The managers wasted no time in robbing her of both.
They shared a look she could not define. Firmin staunchly cleared his throat and again focused his attention on her. "Be that as it may, there is another issue we feel it imperative to discuss. It has come to our attention that the Vicomte de Chagny has shown an avid interest in your, ah … career."
"Yes," Andre smiled ingratiatingly. "A most avid interest."
Their coarse manner insinuated more lay beneath their smooth words. She uneasily recalled how Erik had come to similar conclusions and spoke before she thought. "Any interest you presume the Vicomte to have in me is in my voice alone. Before my operatic debut, he never once recognized my face."
"So you two have met before?" Firmin stated as if he'd long considered the possibility.
She felt trapped in her admission and curled her fingers into moist palms.
"The Vicomte and I were childhood friends. His family took their holiday near my father's seaside cottage one summer, where we met. That was the year before my father died and I came to live here."
Again they shared a covert look and she wished to know what messages passed between them. Or perhaps she would rather not know.
She did not have long to learn her answer.
"Then, as you two are formerly acquainted, you will have no reservations spending time in his company, should he express the desire," Firmin declared rather than requested. "He is our most esteemed patron …"
"Our sole patron," Andre added.
"And we wish to keep the Vicomte happy."
"You do understand what we're telling you, Miss Daae?"
Confused, she looked back and forth between the managers. "You wish me to spend time in the Vicomte's company?" She thought back to the secret confessions she'd overheard a few of the more wanton chorus girls relate of the men they had entertained. "His private company?"
"Nothing clandestine," Firmin lifted his hand in a placating manner. "Don't look so shocked. Though if you were to change your mind and he asked it of you, we wouldn't begrudge you the opportunity. Many women find him handsome, I am told. And his family is very wealthy. Such an arrangement could prove rewarding to you."
"Quite a coup, my dear," Andre added conspiratorially.
She stood with her mouth agape, her face aflame, certain she must have misunderstood. Hoping she had. Surely they were not suggesting that she share with Raoul moments of an intimate nature to guarantee their continued financial success! Illicit activities of which Madame Giry sternly disapproved to the exclusion from the ballet chorus for the unfortunate girls who she discovered defied her rule. Secret activities Christine had only an inkling of knowing. Her meager education into such forbidden topics she'd also overheard from smatterings of personal confidences the ballet rats shared with one another. Of them all, only Meg befriended her, and like herself, Meg was an innocent.
"We understand the Vicomte asked you to the ball," Andre hurried to say as if sensing her offended withdrawal. "And you actually refused him."
"I need no escort. I already have one." She felt more grateful than ever that Erik accepted her invitation. True, his agreement to take her followed her polite refusal to Raoul, but the managers did not need to know the order of events.
Another galling look of secrecy passed between them.
"It would be wise if you gave your apologies to your present escort, fabricate whatever excuse you wish - tell him your managers ordered it if you so desire - and accept the Vicomte's invitation." Firmin's false smile hardened to steel. His small dark eyes brooked no refusal.
Christine blinked. "Surely you cannot be serious. That would be terribly rude, not to mention incredibly heartless!" She had no intention of going to the ball with anyone other than her Angel.
The look in Firmin's eye warned her not to forget herself. "It would not do to insult our new patron either."
His chin lifted in a supercilious air, a chilling match to Andre's expression. "Consider well your future here, Miss Daae. Due to our decision, you will be the new diva. A lucrative career in the opera is well within your grasp. However, without the funds to operate this theater, we would not be able to open our doors to the public. No crowds mean no revenue, and no revenue means no career. Without the backing we need, we would have to sell. And if no buyer comes along this time, you easily could find yourself out on the streets, without the convenience of the free room and board you have so long enjoyed. Do I make myself clear?"
She blinked at his cruel inference. "Perfectly, monsieur" she whispered, her voice shaky, the hot rush of tears stinging her eyes. She forced them back and clenched her teeth. She would not cry in front of these cruel, insensitive men. It was no surprise that they once dealt in junk. Their minds seemed composed of it.
"Most excellent." He inclined his head in mock civility. "Then we will bid you adieu."
"As there is no longer a need for you to attend ballet instruction," Andre suggested, "You might go to the theater. I recall seeing the Vicomte looking things over there. A visit from our lovely young new diva would be most welcome, I daresay."
Christine remained stock-still and rigid as they left the way they came. Moments later, she also moved away – in the opposite direction of the theater.
How dare they!
How could they?
She could not voice her opinion; they made that very clear. Nor could she refuse. She was only a chorus girl, a mere servant beneath their churlish leadership. No matter that her role in the opera would soon change to the most esteemed lead, they would likely always see her as a silly child to be manipulated.
With her arms crossed tight over her churning stomach, she hurried to the dressing room. She slammed the door shut behind her and leaned her back against it, disbelieving of her fate. How could they make such demands? Just when everything was at last going so smoothly! Just when she had her Angel back.
He would never understand. Nor should he have to be made to.
Giving vent to her utter helplessness and angry frustration, she grabbed the first object her hand met with – a tall vase of day-old pink mums – and hurled it at the closest wall, envisioning the managers' heads as she did. Porcelain shattered, spraying the rose-papered wall with dark spots of water. Flowers, their stems broken, their petals crushed, dropped to the worn striped rug.
Open-mouthed, she stared to realize what she'd done. Her outrage dissolved as quickly as it erupted, and oddly her stomach also settled into a strange, frozen calm, her pulse easing into its regular steady beat. Blinking, she slowly turned her head and caught sight of her reflection.
Moisture filmed the cheerless eyes of the lost girl staring back at her from the looking glass, appearing as trapped as she felt.
"Mon Ange …" she whispered, wishing for his counsel.
If she called out, would he hear? He often told her she had only to call his name and he would come to her.
She moved to the mirror. Her fingers brushed its edge. It was then she noticed the dark crevice - which meant the lever on the opposite side had not been locked!
Giving in to her urgent need to see him, she slid the mirror on its track, retrieved a burning candle, and stepped inside the dark corridor. The chill, musty air hit her face, bringing with it the unwelcome return to reason.
What was she doing? She could not do this, not when she so desperately was trying to earn back his trust. She had promised him never again to venture alone through the long, winding passageway to his hidden rooms. And yet, she acknowledged sadly, her need to refrain from seeking him out came from a stronger awareness than that.
To trouble him with her quandary now, when he worked with such diligence to make amends, could only lead to sure devastation. If he learned of the managers' threats to her (she wasn't so naive not to recognize when she was being bullied) he might revert to a fresh wave of terrorization. And she would not be the cause for that to happen.
Miserable, she retreated and closed the mirror door. Her limp fingers idly traced down the cold glass of her forlorn image as she sank in a dejected huddle to the carpet and set the candle next to her.
Why must life be so difficult?
It wasn't that she disliked Raoul; she did not really know him well enough to form an opinion. She told Meg they were childhood sweethearts, but she supposed that was a bit of a stretch for a girl then barely seven. Perhaps, in a sense, he had been her first love those three months, but he was quite altered from the boy who'd splashed into the ocean to retrieve her flyaway scarf and built flimsy castles with her on the sand. The few times they briefly conversed since his arrival at the opera house he seemed more of a stranger. Kind and polite, if a little overbearing, unable to take "no" for an answer. Nor did she forget how he recognized her only after he heard her sing. Before that he'd just brushed past as if she were a useless stage prop. His unintentional slight had injured her pride, but only slightly. He could have had no way of recognizing her in all the years that had elapsed since their summer by the sea.
No matter – assuming his alleged interest in her had rekindled, she had no wish to embellish their youthful acquaintance, and certainly not as the managers insinuated!
Cheeks burning red, she studied her huge eyes that seemed to take up most of her thin face. "Haunted eyes, bland and colorless as dirt," she'd overheard one of the chorus girls cattily remark to another.
Pursing her lips in curious scrutiny, she noticed nothing spectacular about her mouth either. It was too wide and full, her skin too pale, her form too skinny. And her hair was much too curly and wild – the curls a pathetic frizzed mess on humid days or after hours of rehearsal, like now. She was neither plain nor stunning. Nor did she truly care either way.
As long as her Angel was pleased by her appearance, (and surely he must be to draw so many flattering pictures of her to cover his walls), as long as she possessed an extraordinary voice that interested him enough to train her … that was all that mattered. Outward beauty wasn't important. Her mother had been plain and reserved and that hadn't prevented her father from seeing beneath to her exquisite spirit and taking her as his wife, loving her, even beyond death itself.
Christine frowned at the shallow ideals of those she had grown up with in this theater. Just because the Vicomte was handsome why must everyone think she should swoon at his feet? Even her dearest friend Meg, equally enamored, couldn't understand her reticence to seek his company. She tried to explain that she didn't really know him anymore; she kept silent on how much better she knew her Angel. He was still very much a mystery to her. But a loathsome gargoyle he was not. Despite his physical imperfection, what little she'd seen of it, she thought him quite striking.
She let out a hopeless, frustrated little breath, recalling their recent disagreement on the subject.
Outward appearances aside, with Raoul she shared one childish wish during their many games of pretense ages ago. To become Little Lotte.
With her Angel she entrusted her deepest, darkest secrets throughout nearly all of one decade, though at the time of her remorseful confessions she'd thought him a true angel.
Her skin heated from the inside to remember what other confidences she had shared. Some of them quite personal: romantic meanderings of a girlish heart eager to experience the novel taste of love. Such confessions, both in the chapel and in her bed, had often dwindled into daydreams aired. Daydreams he had heard … daydreams shyly spoken to a man …
Not an angel.
The reflection of her eyes widened with unease. Had she said anything about him? Surely not! He never responded with discomfort, which he most assuredly would have done had she made such admissions to her Angel of Music.
To … Erik.
The mere thought of his name, still so new to her, brought a hopeful smile to her lips and a fresh flush to her cheeks. Memory of their recent encounter when she acted so confident, demanding that he listen to what she desired, put the sparkle back in her eyes. She stiffened her spine and lifted her chin, again determined.
A child does not know her own mind to rally in successful opposition, while a woman must often make momentous decisions and stand by them, no matter the odds against her.
Her former words to him – words he once told her – became a mantra that rallied her dwindling courage. She had faced down the legendary Phantom of the Opera and prevailed. What were two pompous junk managers in comparison?
Her Angel - Erik - had never once betrayed her trust; she could always rely on his guidance. And yet … she was considered of age now, a woman. No longer a mindless child living inside a world of captivating fantasy.
This was as momentous a decision as she would ever make, the odds not in her favor, but confront them, she must. Alone, this time. Without her Angel. Without her friend, Meg. Even without Madame Giry's stern supervision.
If Christine was honest with herself, she made her choice years ago in shamed ignorance. Now understanding, no longer ashamed, she would faithfully guard her decision and find a way to see it through to the end.
For her, no other option existed. Not since the day she discovered a man, not an Angel, dwelled in her midst…
A glorious creature of substance.
Not a phantasmal being.
And she would have it no other way.
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