Author's Note: We've hit 1000 views! I thank you all for your support and continuing to read this project of mine. It means the world to me. This chapter is a sort of introductory chapter to the shenanigans of the next six or so chapters, so enjoy! And you can expect more frequent chapters in the future, as my finals will conclude this week and then the summer of writing awaits me. Don't forget to read and review, follow and favorite!
Your elated servant,
-G.P.
"Sweetheart, come along!
For to hear the fond song,
The sweet notes where the nightingale flows?
For hear the fond tale
Of the sweet nightingale,
As she sings in the valley below?
As she sings in the valley below."
- Cornish folk song, "Sweet Nightingale"
October 19, 1921
I have made the decision that it is entirely like me to fall in love with a girl named Melody. I was asked earlier today to watch the dress rehearsal of the school's quaint reproduction of "The Cherry Girl", made famous by London's West End. I myself was never a fan, but to each his own. My Pepper portrayed young Pansy, an object of affection for White Pierrot aiming to participate in a contest with the Queen in order to accumulate enough wealth to make the damsel his wife.
The young man playing Pierrot was a boy just shorter than I and with the voice of an alley cat in labor to the untrained, naked ear. The character of a pierrot suited this oaf whose name I caught to be Steven, particularly the sad clown's makeup he sported reminded me of the twisted clowns on Coney Island. Personally, I was not quite fond of the way his eyes followed Pepper, though I admit the reason why is not one that surprises me.
My newest sketch was not of her as she was now, but as I saw her. Great white wings sprouted from her back, her eyes hopeful and gazing with a smile up to the sky. She was sound personified, unrelenting and uninhibited. She was the filling feeling of breathing in air and erupting with music so corruptive and possessing that it would take you whole without a backwards glance, assimilation in its most primal and beautiful sense. The ears were defenseless against her beckoning. Her hair was the warmth of fire - of life, her eyes where the grass is the greenest and most alive. But I had the privilege of knowing her touch, too, and that was so much more than confining words could describe.
My father once spoke of he and my mother's first kiss. He remembered a blinding agony in knowing that the love of his life loved another - the Vicomte I called 'father' for so many years. He remembered that she loved both of them, so much that the choice split her soul and her heart down the middle. Their first kiss was an act of compassion, and I remember the raw happiness in his eyes when he recalled the memory.
Oh Gustave, it was as if the entire universe...putting aside all it had damned me to be, a murderer and a thief...it was as if the universe had conspired to give me that one moment to teach me that humanity and beauty is not about the unattainable perfection, or the shell we are given to hold our souls on our limited time here. True beauty...true concept of humanity...it is only learned through the acceptance of the monster, both from others and within ourselves. And once this is accomplished, then and only then can you know true love, for it is the apex of what it means to be human.
As I looked at Pepper, my father's words in my head...I knew this was love I felt.
I was closer to the stage these days when I stayed behind to review the choir, and so when I caught her eye, she could see my smile through the heat of the spotlights. I broke my usual gentlemanly and polite composure to wink at her, which lead to a bright dusting on her cheeks that made my heart soar. I was never one for competition, or perhaps I'd never had it before. But even so, the tension made my neck and jaw ache whenever that pierrot Steven touched Pepper…
A few short minutes later and the director halted the performance, signalling the end of the rehearsal. She said a few words, noting the small mistakes and praising the diligent and the newcomers. The director was a funny old thing; she might almost be tolerable if she didn't look like if I gave the slightest indication of displeasure she would wilt on the spot. But I digress, I was feeling pleasant today and in the mood to be generous.
I stood from the chair, my legs thanking me for releasing them from sitting for so long. Several eyes on the stage noticed my presence for the first time as I came up the aisle. A couple of girls nudged Pepper, and giggled, hiding behind their hair. Had she told them about me?...About us?
The director puffed out her chest proudly, and as I climbed the steps to stand beside the piano. "Class, this is Gustave Daae."
"I am certain they are familiar with me, Madame," I reminded her with a wry smirk, "Many of them are my own classmates, even if I am your benefactor in your musical endeavors."
"What they likely do not know is that you are the son and prodigy of the late great Christine Daae," Despite my glare and my assumption that her aim was to impress me, the director went on ignoring my irritability. "Mr. Daae has been observing our choir for the past twenty-three practices."
"And I am pleased to say that your progress from the first time I watched you till now has been both noticeable and profoundly interesting to see develop," I praised, sweeping my eyes over the mass of surprised faces.
The director beamed and seemed as if she might weep. Before she gave herself the chance, she prefaced, standing to the side of her choir. "This year, the performing arts department of the school is hosting the Halloween gala and the ball that follows. Many of my students will be performing and we would be honored if you would attend, Mr. Daae."
Pepper mentioned this little event to me earlier today; the departments of the school often like to organize large parties in the fall to bring the student body together and appreciate all it has to offer. I was never one to partake in anything with copious amounts of people and happiness, as I thought myself a firm disbeliever in the goodness of both, but the winds are changing considerably my way these days…
"I wouldn't miss it," I confirmed, crossing my arms over my chest. I wore dark trousers, bracers and a white button-down which made my skin look paler and my hair blacker.
The director, with her piles of bushy graying hair, her drape-like turquoise dress, and her comically pink half-moon spectacles, came forward with my Melody at her side. "I present, our leading soprano, Melody Logan."
My initial suspicion subsided for the moment as my giddiness to be close to her took its place, and I bowed my head, beckoning her hand. As I bent to kiss her gloved knuckles, I said with an audible grin to my voice, "Ah, mademoiselle, the angel of music that keep any who listen to her coming back to hear more."
The girls behind her sighed at my gesture, and the director looked at me with a mixture of scolding and unmistakable pride. Pepper, her fiery hair curtailing her eyes, said with narrow sarcasm, "Charming and handsome. Seems a bit farfetched if I weren't looking at you, Gustave."
"I apologize," My grin never wavered, my playfulness making the males in the room grit their teeth with viable envy. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Steven deflated of hope. "If I distract you, mademoiselle, do not hesitate to speak up."
The director asked haughtily, casting me a scathing look, "Mister Daae, if we can get back to business. Are you familiar with jazz piano?"
I shrugged, Pepper standing beside me - close enough to indicate friendship, but just far enough to rule out a romantic attachment. "I myself have never played it, but I find the challenge of it intriguing. Why?"
Instead of answering me, she turned to dismiss her choir to go home. All except Pepper. The director passed her, saying a few words in her ear before leaving us.
In mere moments, it was just her and I in the empty auditorium. Despite my heart pounding as it always did when we were alone, I didn't like this. I didn't like this in the slightest. What was the girl I love going to say that required the choir to leave? And what exactly had the director put her up to doing?
"A clue would be most helpful…" I said quietly, my eyes staring into hers.
"I will be performing at the gala too, only I'm the lone solo act." She said, a small smile crossing her face. "I just need a pianist. At least, that's what the initial agreement was."
My stomach was doing trapeze acts complicated enough for Miss Fleck in my torso. Pepper continued, "My director suggested that the song I've chosen could be made into a duet. Too excited to use my head, I told my director that there was a possibility that you'd sing with me. She said it was either you or Steven."
There it was. The first lie I'd ever heard her say to me. And another thing...The one thing I told myself from the very beginning about this girl was that, at times, she was impulsive. Now I knew how impulsive. My chest felt like it would explode, my eyes stinging, and my forehead creased with something I could hardly describe. My hands were fists behind my back, and I kept them there under the pressure of my own self-control...so that my anger didn't lead me to do something that would lose her forever, despite the severity of her transgression. My voice came out taut. "But you had told her it was a certainty that I would agree to sing...didn't you?"
"Gustave, I know you would be-" I couldn't look at her face, it would subside me and I wanted her to know the wrong she had done, how far she had gone out of bounds - that she had hurt me. I chose to glare at the floor instead.
"-and you thought me to be so much a love-struck fool to just let you?" I closed my eyes, a humorless laugh escaping my lips. "Charm me enough to follow you anywhere, hang on your every word, and allow me to trust you...just to launch your career with my last name?"
"You know that's not true." Pepper snapped haughtily. "You know it's not."
"And if I refuse...then that tiresome imbecile that's been eyeing you the entire time you've worked together receives the honor of singing with you," I seethed, throwing my hands up in exasperation - as if it were heaven's joke at my expense. "What a desperate world that would be."
"What if I did sing with Steven?" Pepper's voice was riddled with defiance and indignation.
An image of him choking, face purple as I tightened down on the Punjab lasso flickered across my eyes like the lights of my home. I laughed again, a bit dark for me. I said the words that Madame Giry always pressed into those at Phantasma who dared slander my father. "He would have to watch his back...and keep his hand at the level of his eyes."
I sighed, and cruel silence fell between us for a time. A painful thought intruded into my infinitesimally dark and shadowy mind.
"My father might have been right about you," Her betrayal led me to nip the inside of my cheek after I said those words, hard enough I could taste coppery blood. "I should have listened. Stayed close to my studies, my work and not let your voice send me astray."
"Gustave, why won't you look at me?"
"Because if I do, I'll turn into my father and fall in love with you again even after you've bitten me." I sighed, but before I could retreat down the steps on the side of the stage, her hand - her bare hand, gloveless - encircled my wrist and pulled me back.
I looked at this hand, a freckled and birthmarked little thing, so seemingly frail and yet so strangely strong. I saw the discarded glove on the stage, and then, after a moment of mustering courage, gazed upon her face. Beneath the freckles, a blush nearly as red as her fiery braids shone on her cheeks. Her eyes were sparkling, and I knew it was what I'd said.
"I've fallen in love with you, Melody. Harder than I fell in love with art, or music..." I repeated evenly, shoving down my anger and pain just like I knew I would. "But I can't help thinking...that you may have wanted it to happen for a reason other than you felt the same…"
"Gustave," Her beautiful voice was reduced to a child's whisper, and she slid her bare hand to grasp my own, interlacing our fingers. "I would throw my 'career' away in a heartbeat to live in your fantastical world with you. I acted so rashly...because I…"
She trailed off, and I squeezed her hand. "Say the words. Please. Let me know that I haven't been a fool to dream."
"Because I really…"
My impatience will be the death of me. "Yes, my dear?"
"...like you."
If there's a God, he's laughing at me. I thought, exasperated. But I would take it. We held a gaze of steel, a unheard and unseen exchange between our eyes. Hers were full of hope, of affection...She did not want to admit to her feelings right now. That was fine with me. As long as someday, I would have the pleasure of hearing the words.
"Are all Americans so infuriating?" I quipped rhetorically, "Or is it just that you enjoy teasing me?"
Pepper's worried forehead relaxed, and her freckles danced as she laughed. "The latter, of course."
"Very well," I conceded, "I will sing with you." My jaw hardened as I grew serious. "But a word for the future…I will not be used, and I make my own decisions."
Pepper, instead of trembling at my intimidation, mirrored me and her tone was strictly business to my surprise. "You have my word."
I brought her close, and wrapped my arms around her shoulders, a warm body that clutched me back just as tight. Her face in my collarbone and mine in her sweet-smelling hair. Lowly, I said in her ear, "Come by tomorrow night, my dear. There is someone you simply must meet…One could give you better tutelage with your singing than I ever could."
We broke apart, but still in each other's arms. She asked me, confused. "Who's that?"
"My father."
I returned to Phantasma dripping wet after taking Pepper home that night. The black clouds overhead swelled fat with water, threatening to drown New York City and when I was halfway home, the sky busted open...the lakes of heaven falling. Truly, sincerely I loved the rain. It was a gorgeous way to cleanse the world, even if others found it an inconvenience. It was the grandest time to paint and compose.
I noted that he'd left his cloaks on the back of a chair in the conservatory, so I knew he was home. Likely in his bedchambers. He hadn't eaten in the past day or so...Mechanically, I put together his usual meal: bread, a glass of wine and whatever fruit was in the basket the Girys had brought that week. My father loved plums occasionally, especially the Mirabelles that reminded him of our native France. I threw a plum on the plate with the other items, and descended the staircase that lead to the bowels of the concert hall, where he and I had our living spaces and studies, the library as well.
Typically, I would just leave it on a table by his door and resign to my room if he didn't ask how my day went. But tonight...I heard the most peculiar thing of all the years I've known my father. He was laughing. I peered through the crack to see him in a circle of candles, leaning back on his knees, and facing away from me, laughing so hard it seemed his skeletal shoulders may shatter. His neck craned and the unmasked part of his face was visible, eyes and cheek shining with tears. Happy ones.
The strong scent of incense came to my nostrils, and I fought the urge to sneeze. My hands were shaking and I felt very cold at the words he said between fits of gleeful laughter, despite the weight and iciness of my drenched clothing. Every hair on my body was standing on end, my nerves buzzing with anxiety. My neck prickled.
"Christine! Ah, Christine! Hehehe-hah! You've finally...Heheee! Hahaha! Oh, my beautiful Christine…"
It was when I could've sworn I saw my mother's youthful face in the smoke of the candles that I tore myself forcefully away from his door and made my legs stay on course towards my bedchambers, locking the door behind me.
