A dinner invitation soon followed her encounter with Raoul in the cemetery. Madame Giry clapped her hands together with delight, though her laughter was overcome by the wracking cough that had overtaken her during that spring.
Meg held her mother as she coughed, supporting her body until she had stilled, and was taking slow and cautious breaths. The turning of the season had not brought the improvement in her mother's health that they had both hoped for.
She had been pretending not to notice the scraps of paper with her mother's hastily jotted notes; notes that suggested they were for a Will. Suspicions confirmed the other day when Meg arrived home early from teaching and found Madame Giry fast asleep but the calling card of the solicitor on the hallway table. She had given it to her mother when she served up the soup and bread but said nothing about it; and, neither did Madame Giry.
"There's not that much to leave to anyone, I don't know why she'd bother." Meg eased away from her mother and smoothed the blanket that covered Madame Giry's lap. A part of her wanted to ask but if she even hinted at Maman's demise, the marriage conversation would begin again and Meg really could not deal with it.
"You have accepted, oui?" Madame Giry rasped, once she had regained her breath.
"Yes, Maman." Meg sighed; squinting a little, she threaded a needle and picked up her pointe shoes. It felt like she was always sewing ribbons, the shoes never lasted for long.
"I do not suppose you thought to look in the wardrobe department for a suitable gown?" Madame Giry hobbled over to the old cedar chest that lived beneath the sitting room window.
"No, Maman." Meg replied dutifully and bent to pick up the light pink ribbons. She had been finding ribbons left for her in her dressing room, like apologies, after finding other small belongings destroyed. Truthfully, she had not given much thought to the dinner with Raoul at all.
"How will you impress the Comte?"
"I was not planning on impressing Raoul."
Madame Giry's face darkened and Meg braced herself for the storm.
"Marguerite Giry." Her mother clipped out the vowels making Meg's name hard and cold. "This meal could be the making of your future, secure and well looked after."
"But I'm not –"
"Ah ah." Madame Giry held up finger for silence. "This meal could be the making of your sick maman's peace of mind."
"I am not interested in him."
"You have not been interested in any of the young men who have looked your way for years." She paused to cough. "If women waited until they were interested in their potential suitors, mankind would have died out ages ago."
"She has a point." Meg thought reluctantly but she would not give her mother the satisfaction of agreeing.
"I do not want Christine's leftovers." Meg laid the shoes in her lap and waited for her mother to catch her breath and resume the tempest. It was no good to try to stop it but maybe if she fed it, the storm would fizzle itself out quicker.
"What do you call the Opera Ghost?" she snapped.
Meg flinched; another of Christine's leftovers.. "He is dead or have you forgotten that?"
"Perhaps I am mistaken in that assumption." Madame Giry said slowly, eyeing the ribbons in Meg's lap. "New ribbons again, ma petite?"
"Perhaps you have been lying on purpose."
"And what if I were? It is only to protect you."
Meg bit back a retort, biting her lip instead and balling her hands in her lap.
"Eight and twenty, Marguerite, long in the tooth by anyone's standards, but widowers who have no need of more children."
"Maman!" she gasped; really now, long in the tooth indeed!
"I know I have indulged your.. independence and pushed your career." Madame Giry sank to the floor beside the chest. "I am afraid, ma petite." She whispered. "The end has come so much faster than I dreamed. I have so little to leave you." Madame Giry dissolved into another coughing fit, wrapping her arms around herself. Meg went to her mother, handed her a linen handkerchief and held her until the cough subsided once more. She gently took the cloth from her mother's hand and tucked it into a basket with the others, all soiled red, crumpled warnings of worse to come. Meg poured her mother a glass of water and waited while she drank it.
"Is it Him? The reason why you are so disdainful for your future? He has left you little gifts and you have accepted them. You must not accept any more."
She would accept them as long as he (or whomever) continued to ruin her things. But Meg did not answer quickly enough for her mother.
"Even if he is not dead, he should be. Erik is not a man for you. He is dangerous, ma petite. Unstable. The madness swallows any love in him, if there ever was any."
"Even if he is not dead." Meg mimicked disdainfully. "You have said that he is not and now he is here, in Paris."
"The life you would have with someone like him is no kind of life for you, ma petite."
Meg did not answer, simply assisting her mother to rise and resettling her on the settee, rearranging the blanket.
"He is a brilliant man, ma petite and wounded. You have a kind heart but there is nothing in the world you or anyone else could do to fix him." Madame Giry cupped Meg's cheek with her careworn hands. "Please, promise me again, that you will not seek him out."
"I promise, Maman." Meg kissed her mother's hand. "But what if he seeks me out?"
"Then pray it is not for any vengeful reasons."
"Such as having supper with Christine's widower?"
Madame Giry pursed her lips and frowned. "Do not fret." She patted Meg's hair. "Put on the gown your maman took such trouble to get out." She pointed to the blue pile on the chest. "Then she shall dress your hair."