A peek into the past for both Nora and Erik. Erik's section here was posted independently a few weeks back as Light of My Days but was written especially for the Decennial, so here you go.

Best Which is First

"I was beginning to think that I would need to do something terribly uncouth to have a moment of conversation with you— spill wine on your dress, or cut in during the polka. You are quite the lady of the hour, Ellie."

Nora couldn't help it if her smile became a tick more genuine. "I don't recall anyone being quite so interested in my return last time."

"Last time, you were sixteen and had not been presented to the Queen," Anthony pointed out as the musicians struck up again. There was the requisite bow-and-bob, and they made their way onto the floor. Anthony was not the keenest dancer, but Nora could trust him with a moderately paced waltz. Indeed, he seemed to have improved dramatically in the last year. "How did you manage that? The town whispers you bought your ticket, but it could not have been quite so easy."

"Papa's service to the crown was sufficient for the invitation," she replied. "As for the rest, the family did open up the vaults—to let loose a veritable dragon. My great-aunt was the daughter of a viscount, and made sure my feathers were de rigueur."

"Feathers being of great importance?"

"Profoundly great importance," Nora was able to keep her face serious for scant few seconds. "Shall I give you the digest of how things really went? We were stuck in the carriage— in the midst of a line of carriages crawling on their way— for hours. The drawing room was stuffy, no one was comfortable, the Queen still wears full black, and asking about the war in New Zealand is apparently not appropriate teatime conversation. Did I leave anything out?"

Anthony was a well-bred gentleman. He did not laugh outright, but his shoulders shook ever so slightly. "Rather a lot, I imagine." His eyes flickered to the side of her face for a moment. "Wear those to court?"

Nora tilted her head, acutely aware of the weight of her sapphire earrings. It was the weight of trial and triumph by turn. "No, of course not. That would not have been de rigueur. Pearls at court. Aunt Ruth bought these afterwards. Mama... does not care for them."

That was a polite understatement in deference to the public venue. Some other time, Nora would have gladly let loose a diatribe to Anthony and Daniel on the latest battle with her mother. Not that either Miss nor Madame Farley had ever been much for explosive confrontations. Nora had learned to be all ice, and so her mother's pique usually took the form of an ice pick— sharp and solid, and deliberately driven. It had been especially sharp since Nora returned from England, after so many months spent away from her parents' house. Her mother loathed the earrings, and the blue figured silk she had usually worn them with— even the perfectly conservative rolls Nora now pinned her hair into were ripe for criticism. But the earrings were a particular bone of contention, no matter (or perhaps because of) how many evenings they had seen out in London and Paris.

"And yet you wear them? So at least some of the rumors are true. City life corrupts the... er... sweet and docile dispositions of malleable young women?"

Their eyes met, and with the experience of long friendship, Nora knew they were both fighting a losing battle against raucous laughter. The waltz started coming to a close, and Nora felt Anthony steer them away from where Miles Faucher was lingering. She had already paid her dues to the richest— and dullest— of Ottawa's young bachelors during the opening number.

"Schottische?" Anthony asked as the tune changed.

Another dance where Nora's shoes should stay relatively safe, and few would look askance at two such old friends dancing twice in a row. Anthony put led them into opening position with more than the usual flourish. "You've been practicing. Who convinced you to do that after all these years?" she teased. The light died in his eyes, and Nora felt a bit of a fool. The proper course of conversation called for her to gloss over the snag, to ignore that look of hurt she could so plainly see and allow him the dignity of pretending not to be a feeling creature. Well, Nora was no better at proper conversation on a dance floor in Ottawa than she had been with teatime topics in London. If she could not feign inanity, she could at least be sincere in her solemnity. "I was... sorry to hear what happened."

Anthony huffed. "I'm sure Daniel sent all the news."

Daniel had, with commentary, but even Nora didn't see a reason to disclose all to Anthony. "I was still surprised. I had thought I would be coming home just in time for the wedding."

"You were not the only one," he shrugged. "But apparently my survey work does not quite meet the standards of— well, they did not call my gentility into question, at least, but shall we say... stability?"

"What rot," Nora scoffed. "It's an adventure. It's important work. And it isn't as though Laura doesn't have a dowry to keep up six generations of gentlemen explorers on interest alone."

"All the more reason for her father to persuade her otherwise."

"And that's what it was? Persuasion?"

Anthony shrugged again, not quite in time with the music. "I tell myself that it was, a dozen or so times a day."

"Well, then," Nora lifted her chin, "she is, ah—" she struggled to find an appropriate word, and somehow became her old Quebecois nanny in the search— "niaiseuse."

The third attack of laughter could not be stopped. Anthony let go of her waist just long enough to wipe his eyes. "I will remember to tell that to my broken heart next time sleep eludes me."

"Do," she said. "Daniel is coming for tea tomorrow. Why don't you come along, and tell us about the survey?"

He had as little hesitation in accepting the invitation as Nora had in giving. "So long as you tell the story of those sapphires. There is a story, is there not?"

"Oh, yes," Nora grinned in a way that was not entirely ladylike. "Daniel will chastise me, and you will laugh, and I will continue on my merry way." To hell, she did not add aloud, though if her mother was to believed, that was precisely her destination. At least she would have some laughs along the way, and maybe— just maybe— make Anthony smile, as well. Damnation was a perfectly reasonable price for a friend's smile, wasn't it?

Light of My Eyes

i.

"Do you think as many lovers in real life are as ill-fated as they are in the operas?"

Erik did not let his hands drop from their position poised about the violin. He had grown used to his pupil's occasional digressions, especially if the lesson had been taxing. A few words usually sufficed, though he found he did not have a ready answer for her this time. "Well. What have you seen to be the case? Very few couples first launch into song and thereafter murder one another." The Garnier was performing Samson et Dalila, and Erik was reviewing excerpts for a change. He had shifted the key of Spring begins, and Christine had handled it credibly. Why it had prompted such a question was rather beyond him. (Usually he was frustrated by the practical aspects of their lessons being separated by a wall— not being able to quickly ascertain bad form, or the tricks of acoustics he had to constantly play. Now he wished he could see her face, so as to better divine what was on her mind. If only he had thought to make of mirror two-wayed, and not merely a rotating door!)

"I have not seen many lovers, happy or unhappy," Christine replied, meditatively. "My mother died when I was very young. My papa loved her, you know, but sometimes she sounded more like a fairy princess in his stories than a mama. And then there was the Professor. He was most keen on his work, and Madame Valerius used to tease him— tax him— about it terribly. I think she is more devoted to him now as a widow than she had been as a wife. And as for the dancers, and the other singers—"

Erik forestalled her here. He knew more than he wanted to of the various love affairs within the company and did not need a recital. "If it is any consolation, it is not love that Delilah harbors for Samson. She is a seductress and her song is a deceit. Put it out of your mind." He made to start on Softly awaken my heart, but Christine would not be sidetracked.

"But it sounds like love."

"Yes. Yes, it sounds like love. And if you were to sing Delilah truly— you never will, your voice is too bright, too pure for the role, but if you did— well, you would need to sing it as if it were love. You would need to believe it, if only for a moment, in order to sing it well. No doubt that is what Delilah did." Erik paused for one more, fleeting moment. "And in that respect— why yes, love is precisely as the operas show, and the lovers' fates are not different after all."

ii.

"Madame Giry was telling tales of the Ghost backstage," Christine said. "She brought up that he foretold Meg would be an empress. I think it embarrasses Meg a little."

Christine had not been quick to make friends, but as the weeks of their lessons went on Erik found himself hearing more and more of chorus and ballet girls. He had learned to let her talk, for it seemed to do her good. He may have even found himself enjoying her prattle, just for the pleasure of hearing her voice and sensing the life creep back into her soul.

"Meg hides it, of course. She's very, ah, Parisian—" Erik could almost hear the blush coloring the word— "She says she would not like to be an empress, for it would be very confining, but would be very happy to leave the stage for a rich baron, or some other continental lord."

"And so she might," Erik replied. "It's no uncommon thing for a good dancer in a reputable company to make an advantageous match."

"But is it really 'advantageous?'" Christine asked. "To give years of yourself to an art, and then abandon it for, well, money? If it was love, perhaps, but Meg makes no mention of 'falling in love' with a rich baron. I cannot imagine doing so."

"No, indeed." Erik was momentarily alarmed by the vision of a baron— rich and handsome— turning his eyes away from the dancers and onto his little songbird instead. But he had confidence that Christine was not the sort to be easily swayed, and he dismissed her mention of leaving art for love. It was, no doubt, a product of her romantic upbringing. "But you mustn't compare yourself with Meg Giry in this respect. What is a sound fate for her would be wholly inappropriate for you."

The silence dragged, and when Christine finally uttered a quiet oh, Erik knew he had been misconstrued.

"That is to say," he considered his next words as carefully as he could, but felt inexplicably that he was floundering. "Meg Giry is a very good dancer. In time, she may well be a great dancer. But hers is not a talent for ages. When she leaves the stage, it will be no great loss. Her abilities will serve just as well in a ballroom in the arms of dull gentlemen. Your voice… it does not compare. It can never compare. She could be an empress and still fall short of you."

"Oh," she murmured again, but the tone was no longer dejected. There was a note of wonder in it. Then, a little humor crept in. "I suppose that means if I married, it should be to another musician so I need never leave off singing."

Erik did not dignify this joke with a response.

iii.

Christine was waiting for Erik's critique, silent and serious.

Erik, too, was silent. This was how they usually worked: she would sing uninterrupted, then Erik would pull apart the life and soul and mechanics of the music, and finally they would put it back, piece by piece, together. But today?

How long had he been working with Christine, standing secreted behind the moving wall and hollow bricks of her dressing room, coaxing and correcting her? A few weeks? A few months? Every lesson had been like a cleansing clothe wiped over the instrument of her voice, removing the rust and crushing grief that stifled her potential. In every lesson, he could hear the entrapped potential, like the echo of perfection.

Today, there was no echo. It was just her voice, all gold sunlight melting away shadows both high and low. He would not have thought of her as Lucia, but as soon as her voice began weaving into the soft start of Silence reigned, he knew she could sing whatsoever she pleased.

He heard her shift her weight from one foot to the other, and then back again. He had to say something. He had offer some point for refinement. But how could he, when his heart was fit to burst for the beauty of it all?

"The cabaletta was well done," he said slowly, and it was an understatement. Her execution had been faultless. Even the high note at the end seemed to have been low-hanging fruit to her. "But the cantabile before it—"

The cantabile had been magnificent, for all it was the less technically taxing of the two parts. It wasn't just how her voice had slid over the trills without the faintest suggestion of effort. It wasn't only the interplay of strength and delicacy in her tone, how it first melded into the violin and then overtook it. It was a revelation of expression. How was it possible to take the repetition of with blood reddened – with blood reddened – with blood reddened and make it tender, and somehow make tenderness not seem out of place?

"The cantabile?" Christine prompted nervously.

"Whatever it is you found in yourself as you sang the cantabile—whatever that was, hold on to it. Your glory lies there."

There was a pause. Erik pictured her looking solemn and earnest, as she so often did when he caught glimpses of her. But her voice, when she spoke, was almost casual. "Oh! Oh, that. Well. I like the sad bits."

Erik did not know if he should laugh or cry at her words, as sincere and simple as they were. It seemed that every time she sang, every time she spoke some part of his heart unlocked and he had no notion what to do with the new spaces in it. The realization of what he wanted to do, how he wanted to fit Christine into those places and keep her there, startled him and words failed yet again.

"Marguerite," he interrupted the spiral of his own thoughts. "Tomorrow, we start on Faust."

One of the nicest challenges presented by writing somewhat more mature characters is how much history they carry with them. When I first started writing Nora as a foil, I knew she needed to have some kind of romantic past, but nothing particularly extreme. The ordinary disappointments, rather than Erik's turn for high drama. I toyed only briefly with ever having Anthony make an appearance in Stroll, but he was surplus to requirements. By then, she's rather outgrown any of her younger fancies. Digging into it in retrospect was interesting, because Nora is fundamentally the same person (independent, a little self-centered, but utterly devoted to those she thinks worth her time) without any of the experience.

As for Erik- I knew I needed to write his Christine. I admit to trying to, er, de-creep Erik a bit while still staying true to the events described in the book. I've always pictured his infatuation with Christine as a slower slip: a mostly professional interest turning skewing romantic more out of lack of other options than anything else. He sees something relatable in her grief, misinterprets it, internalizes it, and, boom, the grasshopper or the scorpion? Okay, you can't logic Erik that much. Also, writing Erik and Christine is just an excuse for me to torture myself by trying to communicate about opera and music on some deeper level when I am really a complete dilettante. In line with that, the title for Erik's piece here is lifted from the aria Christine last sings - Regnava nel silenzio from Lucia di Lammermoor, specifically where Lucia switches from telling ghost story to anticipating her lover's arrival. Read into that what you will.

(Nora's title here is a tongue in cheek reference to Herrick's 'To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time,' which she doubtless read and then proceeded to do Exactly the Opposite of what it advises.)