A/N: Sorry about the lateness of this update but I've been in a production of Carmen for charity the past week and a half and so,obviously, my entire time and energy has been taken up by that. Similarly, updates might be a little all over the place for a bit as I have a film in India in a few months.
Thank you so much to my readers, followers, messagers and most of all, my reviewers, (Taria Robotnik and CaptainHooksGirl; love ya!)you guys are the best! I wish I could spend so much time thanking you usy individually and all that, but then these chapters would take even longer to get up so, erm, on with the show!
(Also I know Christine's closing comment on marriage may not sound very in character, but it's actually the exact words an Edwardian lady wrote to her friend after her first night as a married woman, and I have always loved the quote and just had to use it!)
Enjoy!
Tuppence x
Madame Giry, just before she herself went to bed (the last in the cottage to do so), could not resist the temptation that an ajar bedroom door gave her. It had been Christine's room for all intents and purposes, but since the (rather eventful) marriage ceremony earlier that day and all the legal documentation that had followed, it had now become Erik's room as well. Antoinette could not deny there had been some awkwardness at the concept; the two may be married but were still, technically, at the beginning of the courtship, no matter how long they had been in one another's lives. However, neither one had seemed to want to contest this accepted fact of sharing a room, but Antoinette knew that for all his reputation, Erik was a gentleman and anything Christine was not ready for he would not pursue, no matter how much the body may crave it. So intensely, and shamefully curious, Madame Giry paused on the hallway and craned her neck so as to see through the slither of a gap the unlocked door had left.
On the bed, on top of the sheets, and both still fully dressed in the clothes they had worn earlier that day, both Erik and Christine were fast asleep. They were close to one another, face to face, and their fingertips were touching as though they had fallen asleep whilst holding hands. Erik's mask lay unused on a small bedside cabinet so Antoinette knew he had bared his face, though she could not see it herself as his deformity was buried into the feather pillow.
Nodding her head slightly, as though this scene was exactly what she had been expecting, she retired to bed herself.
The next morning the two sisters were the first ones up in the entire house (with the exception of Tomás who had been up at the crack dawn for some business in town) and were, for a while, the only ones up. Using this moment of privacy to their advantage the two began to talk in detail about events as they sat at the large, wooden kitchen table.
"Did Tomás ask you to share everything about that night?" Antoinette asked, referring to Marguerite's outburst about the death of her friend.
"You know Tomás," She replied, "He never forces me into anything, but I could tell he wished to know. So I told him. Everything. He was remarkably understanding...but then, he always is" She seemed to want to say something, but she hesitated. Her sister, however, didn't miss it.
"What is it?" Antoinette asked.
"Well, it's only my curiosity really, though I suppose you would call it nosiness, but-"
"You are wondering how the newly weds fared last night?" Her sister filled in knowingly, "Well if you must know I let my own curiosity get the better of me and peered in last night-"
Marguerite's eyes widened in shock, "Antoine-"
"I didn't look in on anything untoward," Antoinette protested, "They were just asleep, both dressed. I don't think anything happened. But he wasn't wearing his mask, so he has obviously become comfortable not wearing it around her at least which shows remarkably progress...I just think its a little soon for them to...do anything more"
"I don't know," Marguerite's expertise in such matters made her unsure of her sister's statement, "The way they are with one another- they are both eager for something to happen in my opinion. Maybe they are both too shy"
"Compared to you most of the world is shy," Antoinette replied cynically; she was the only one who could make joking remarks about Marguerite's 'career' without her sister being offended or hurt.
"Christine!" She heard name being whispered urgently and turned to see Meg leaning out of her and her Mother's room. She beckoned her friend over eagerly. As soon as she was within reach, she grabbed Christine's hand and pulled her into the room, closing the bedroom door behind them.
"My goodness, Meg, what is it?"
Meg looked at her as though she was mad.
"I thought that would have been obvious," She replied as she sat down on the large bed, and gestured for Christine to do the same, "I was wondering how last night went"
Christine's eyes widened in shock at this question.
"Meg, you can't possibly be asking that of me-"
"What? No, I only meant how the two of you were after the rush wedding and then Raoul turning up and-" Meg suddenly paused, as she read between the lines of what her oldest friend had just said, "Wait, unless something happened that I should not be asking of?"
Christine blushed but remained silent.
"Christine! Were you not- was it not- I mean did he not wear his wig...or anything?"
Christine sighed in mild frustration, "Oh Meg I hope you'll soon be able to see past all that as I do. If you could just see...in his soul, for all his disfigurement, for all of his past...his soul is pure. And whole. And oh Meg, he laughed! It was the first time I had ever heard him truly laugh, and it was at his own expense!"
"What do you mean?"
"Well I asked him to remove his mask once again, and this time, the hair piece also. He was reluctant but assented; he took them off with a sudden rapidity which I can only presume was to overcome his own fears...and well, what little hair he has became the victim of static electricity and," Christine giggled slightly, as the memory came back to her and Meg marvelled at the liveliness awakened in her friend, "it all stuck up on end as if to attention. I couldn't help myself; I began to laugh!"
Meg covered her mouth with her hand; from all she had heard, and from what little she knew, of the aloof masked man she did not think he would have welcomed laughter directed at himself.
"Well, at first, it wasn't terribly well received. I'm sure you've seen when his expression seems to darken, just as the sky does when it threatens a storm"
Meg nodded, knowing all too well that which Christine was referring to; when Meg had seen that expression in their so far brief stay at her Aunt and Uncle's it had frightened her, because it was in those moments that she remembered he was the Phantom of the Opera, and with it she remembered all the dangerous 'accidents' that had occurred at the theatre house.
"Instead of trying to explain, as I knew that would only make him more frustrated, I convinced him to let me show him. He hates mirrors, and he openly said so, but he also said he could not deny me anything I asked and that he would deliver the world if I requested it"
Meg couldn't deny that such romantic declarations made her own heart flutter, and more of the understanding Christine so desired of her began to grow.
"I guided him to the dressing table and showed him in the mirror how every hair on his head was standing, as if to attention. "You look like a mad professor" I told him and I couldn't help myself; I began to laugh again. And to my surprise, and my delight, oh so much delight Meg, he began to laugh too! And oh that sound," Christine's eyes, which up till now had been alive with the storytelling now took on a dreamy and glazed appearance, "His laugh...I had never heard it before, and it was so musical as if someone had made the sound by softly ringing bells or running their fingertips around the rim of a glass...and his face, a broad smile upon it; oh if you had seen that Meg, then you would dismiss the deformity as I now do"
"And after- after the laughing..." Meg probed, "Did anything else happen?"
"I'll admit I was reluctant- I was so nervous and worried. And I think he was as well. And I believed it too soon...but...something seems to happen between us which neither of us can control..." Christine spoke as though she were unsure whether this fact thrilled her or frightened her more.
"And what did happen?" Meg continued to probe, her own impish curiosity overriding any sense of propriety or repulsion at Erik's true face.
"Meg," Her friend reprimanded, "You cannot ask such details of anyone- and if your Mother were to hear you. I will say this though; no matter how soon or how long it takes to reach it, marriage is lovely...but cor, ain't it rude?"
Erik was stood outside, at his usual post on the veranda, only instead of looking out into the night, he was looking out onto the sunlit hills. It had been so long since he had stood so openly in broad daylight that he found the sensation unfamiliar. He had forgotten the heat of sunbeams on his skin, the fact his eyes had to squint to protect himself against the rays that would otherwise temporarily blind him, that colours were brighter and bolder in sun than they were in the brightest moon. It was for these very reasons that he had chosen to shun the day; it had not looked upon him favourably and only served to remind him of all that he would always be denied. Night had embraced him, protected him but somehow, after the previous night, he had felt compelled to venture out in the day- he felt it could not hurt him, could not bring him down, in fact, for the first time in his life he felt truly undefeatable and was not just creating an illusion of it.
The reason last night had made such an impression on him? Oh, so many things. Christine had said openly that she loved him, had not pulled away when he had said the same in turn, she had made him laugh (and laugh at his own inferiority of all things!) and then...oh she had kissed him and it had awakened so many desires in him (desires that he had never been allowed to enjoy, to embrace, before but never had he so wanted to give in as he had in that moment) and ashamed of himself, and afraid to force Christine into something she would undoubtedly be unready for, he had forced himself to push those desires down and had instead sat beside her, talking, sharing, learning about one another until they had eventually fallen asleep. But then, later-
"You are going to wear away the wooden floors of this loggia, Monsieur" Marguerite's voice broke into his thoughts, "How is it I always seem to be able to find you here?"
Erik did not answer, for he did not feel he needed to; Marguerite was not asking for a response, but merely passing comment. He did turn to look at her, however, and found her to be studying him and, under such intense scrutinisation, he felt his good mood vanishing.
"Yes?" He asked, trying to be as calm as possible, but the tense and warning tone still came through.
"You...seem different," She told him, "There's less of the...wild animal about you..."
"You once told me that Christine was my chance for the light...perhaps I finally have grown to accept it"
"Perhaps," She agreed with a knowing smile, but since he had turned back to gaze at the surrounding fields once again, he did not see this.
"So long, so many years, hiding away in the bowels of an immense building that became my world, my kingdom, yet unable to belong...watching people live their lives while I had no choice but to have mine pass me by." He was speaking as though to himself, and seemed to have momentarily forgotten Marguerite's presence, "And seeing a couple hand in hand caused me such pain, turned me more bitter than life had already made me for I knew that I, with this- this- " He brought his hand up to hover in front of the masked part of his face, the fingers curling slightly as if to claw away at the deformity underneath, "- no face as hideous as this would ever be permitted a chance at such a thing. No matter how much I might wish it..." He wandered off into silence, and Marguerite felt unsure of whether to speak or leave or make any movement at all, and so instead stood there silently, waiting to see if he would continue with his soliloquy and after a few minutes had passed he began to speak again, this time with more life and hope in his words than the bitter ones previously spoken, "And then Christine. And I dared to hope...dared to dream, though I always knew it would never be reciprocated if she knew my true face, if she knew who I was, what I'd done and when she tore off my mask my heart broke for I knew then that she would never love me. But I was wrong- for she smiled at me, and gave me hope, and gave me chances I never deserved. And then she has looked upon this face, and touched it and kissed it without a trace of fright, as I thought no one ever would. You are right," He said, now turning to Marguerite, acknowledging her presence once again, "I have been changed and I only hope, for her sake, that I continue to do so"
Later on, Marguerite spoke to her sister of her conversation, which had continued on for a short while, with Erik. Antoinette frowned.
"You seem to bring more words from him in one conversation than I have managed the entire time I have known him"
Marguerite shrugged slightly, "Perhaps I have a habit of finding him at his most vulnerable time. Or perhaps he recognises a fellow soul with a dark past..."
"Your past is not dark, sister," Antoinette assured her, placing a comforting hand upon her sisters.
"It is dark enough,"
Antoinette decided the best thing was to change the direction of the conversation, "So you believe the marriage was consummated?"
"Of course,"
"I have to say," Antoinette couldn't help shrugging slightly, "I am surprised at Christine"
"Why?" Marguerite asked in a tone that was slightly aggressive. She felt her sister was judging Christine for giving herself so soon, and considering Marguerite's past, this was naturally a sensitive subject. Antoinette, however, was not oblivious to her sister's sudden change in tone and she quickly made to abate her.
"I only meant that Christine seemed so young and reserved...and, well, a little naïve. I did not expect her to be ready for such a thing; especially with such an older man"
"Despite the age difference, in experience they are equals," Marguerite argued, "They are both incredibly inexperienced...and are finding their way together"
Out of the corner of her eye, Antoinette glimpsed both Erik and Christine walking into the parlour which had recently become the music room. They never broke eye contact as Erik opened the door for her, their hands brushing as she walked ahead of him and Erik looked down shyly for a moment before following her. "I think perhaps your right," She agreed.
