Paris, 1878
There was rumor that Jules Giry, the principal set artist who had been responsible for the lifelike piazza in La Juive and the decadent Eastern Court in Le Roi de Lahore, was mad. He was rat-faced and shifty-eyed, but elsewise the kindest man in the company, a man who never stood on ceremony and always had a hand available. He had a wife who had probably possessed a sort of ruddy-faced prettiness at fifteen, but it had abandoned her by the time she was thirty.
(It was hard to say if Madame Jules was mad as well, for she lived in a world of fairies and goblins and ghosts; but such a world was not out of place in the wings of a theater.)
But Jules loved his dull wife, and doted on his ugly little daughter, and was generally deemed too happy for a man on the right side of sanity.
The backstage gossips were all vindicated when they found Good Monsieur Jules hanged from the catwalks with a note of apology tucked in his pocket.
Besides Madame Jules—whom everyone started to called 'Madame Giry,' to better separate her from the unseemly tragedy—Erik was the most put out.
He had rather liked Jules for his talent, and was sorry that the Garnier should lose him. But more than that, he did not like the idea of the man's death being ascribed to his hand. And, what, with the rope and the rafters… it was impossible for there not to be whispers. He had enough blood on his hands as it was: he did not want Jules Giry's, even by mistake.
And, well, Madame Giry was the most ardent believer in the ghost. She would not hesitate to spread the tale, if she came to hear it and believe it.
He bought her a box of English toffee, three black feathers to replace the white ones she wore in her bonnet, and scribbled out a note.
My condolences.
O.G.
It was sometime later that he was considering how best to take his salary, and he noticed Madame Giry's nimble fingers. She mostly used them to steal the stage manager's cigarettes, but also to tuck a note into someone's pocket from time to time.
A useful skill, Erik thought, one that would fit in nicely with his own ideas. How to obtain her services? How to ask a favor of her?
Madame Giry did not scare, though she did like the idea of an intrigue. She might help Erik on principle. He tipped her well, when she attended him in Box Five…
But, no. Offering her money would buy him nothing; confections seemed a dubious salary to rest a quarter of a million francs per annum on.
He found the solution as he reviewed the ballet corps. Little Meg was still far from beautiful—in truth, she looked rather like her father—but she was not untalented. Her turnout was fair enough, and her port de bras rather good. Give her another few years, and La Sorelli a broken foot, and she might be doing solos with some measure of aplomb. He approved of her place in the corps.
Then he caught Madame Giry's voice.
"She is my daughter!" she said to some other theater worker. "She is my daughter, Little Meg." Her voice, unrefined by nature and made shrill by premature age and care, fairly sparkled with pride.
Erik thought he might just love the faded widow for that, for the remarkable love she held for a wholly unremarkable daughter. Would that all mothers felt their duty so keenly. Would that all mothers would be content with the promise of their children's future.
Erik penned a letter to Madame Giry, a list of every ballerina who had married notoriously well. It was his unspoken bribe for a job well done, a payment that Erik had no way of funding. But that did not matter. Little Giry had shrewd, sloe eyes. She did not need Erik's help with this.
1885: Meg Giry, Empress!
It was some weeks later, when Carmen was singing her infamous Habanera, that Erik summoned Madame Giry to Box Five. He sequestered himself in the hollow wall, and let his voice drifty enticingly.
"Madame Jules—" none of this 'Madame Giry' nonsense for Mad Jules Giry's wife— "Madame Jules, do you see that envelope on the ledge? Would you do me a favor?"
He could picture the feathers in her cap coming to attention, and when she spoke, there was smile in her voice.
"Certainly, Monsieur!"