Chapter Ten
Down Once More
That night, Éponine was awakened from sound sleep by arms lifting her out of bed. She stiffened in confused, sleepy fright.
"Don't be frightened. It is only Erik." He spoke softly, evidently not wanting to wake anyone.
"Erik?" she hissed. "What are you doing?" She could see him only faintly in the gentle moonlight filtering through the window, but she could feel his strong arms around her and the button of his tailcoat digging into her arm.
"I have come to take you back to the house on the lake, where you will finish your recovery. There is a fiacre waiting for us outside." He quickly added, "Only if you wish to come."
Earlier that day, she would have gone back without hesitation. She did not want to impose on the hospitality of the Daroga any longer, and she had felt safe and comfortable during her stay at the house on the lake. She had trusted Erik, and she didn't believe he intended anything ill toward her. Now though, the Daroga's warning echoed in her mind: Just be careful. She hesitated a long moment. "If I change my mind, would you let me leave?"
"Of course," he said quickly. "I do not intend that you should stay forever, only until you recover. And if you want to leave before you are well, it is not my right to prevent you."
"Then I will go," she said decisively. But—she promised herself—she was going to have some more questions for him, when they returned. "I think I can manage walking on my own."
Erik seemed hesitant, but he listened and set her down on her feet. She swayed, and her stomach lurched thinking she was going to fall, and she clutched wildly at his arm.
"Perhaps I had better carry you?" he asked. She agreed.
As he carried her down the stairs, she said, "Does monsieur the Daroga know I'm leaving with you?"
"I sent him a letter, which he will receive in the morning."
Wary, she asked, "Why not come in the morning, and tell him so? Why leave all sneaky-like, by moonlight?"
"Because the Daroga cannot resist meddling in my affairs, and he misunderstands everything."
This made Éponine feel very uneasy, for if there was nothing sinister with his taking her back to the house on the lake, why would the Daroga, who seemed reasonable enough, object? She did not know the Daroga well, that was true—and he was a cop, and she never was one to trust a cop. Still, he had been kind and opened his home for her, and seemed genuinely concerned. She considered asking Erik to leave her there, or to come back in the morning. But instead, she just let the matter drop. Maybe that made her a fool. Well, so be it.
There was, indeed, a fiacre waiting outside, and Erik placed her in it very gently. "To the Opera House," he instructed the driver.
They did not speak much during the ride. His eyes were on her all the time, almost as though he expected her to disappear. It made her wonder whether he had perhaps been lonely while she was away.
"How long has it been?" she asked.
"Since the Daroga came to fetch you? About a fortnight."
"What! I was sleeping for most of it. That's a lot of time." It was a lot of lost time. She realised, with an ache in her heart, that she still didn't know what became of any of those young men at the barricade, and Monsieur Marius with them. Or her little brother, Gavroche, who had been there too. And then there was Maman, presumably still in Saint-Lazare. She might have been able to get some news of her by now, if she'd been out in the streets. What of Azelma? The sisters were rapidly growing apart, and Azelma made it clear that she did not want or need Éponine to look after her. But, after the little stunt Éponine pulled in the Rue Plumet, her father was probably seething, and he would want to make her pay. With her no where to be found, she hoped he wouldn't take it out on Azelma.
All together, including the days spent in the house on the lake, it had been a little over a fortnight. So much could happen in that time. She had no way of finding out about her family right now, but Erik had mentioned reading about the barricade in the papers. She considered asking him how it had all turned out, but it hurt her heart too much to contemplate, and she decided she would rather not know. From the papers, he may be able to tell her the number of people dead, but not who was among the fallen, and she would torture herself thinking about it.
They came to a stop. Erik jumped down first, then pulled her out and stood there holding her until the fiacre rolled away, the clopping of the horses' hooves faded to nothing, and the street was noiseless and deserted.
"Do you think you can stand for a moment?"
She nodded.
He set her on her feet, where she could lean against the wall. Then, she heard the scraping of metal on stone as he lifted some sort of grate.
She shook her head violently. "No way I'm going into the sewer." Too many bad memories, and too strong a possibility of running into people she no longer wished to know.
"This doesn't lead to the sewer," Erik said, letting her take his arm and ushering her toward the opened grate. "It's only meant to look that way." He was silent a moment. "This is the fastest way down, but I suppose you are too weak to climb a ladder."
Not only that, but she only had one usable hand at the moment. Éponine frowned. It was too annoying, being so weak and not good for anything.
"Here." He pulled a rope out of his sleeve, and Éponine shuddered as she recognised it as some sort of noose. He wrapped it around her waist. "Wait here."
He disappeared down a ladder into pitch blackness. Then, Éponine saw a faint light. She realised he had gone down to light a lantern. He emerged again, and then explained he was going to lower her down first and come after her. "Call out to me when you reach the bottom."
He lowered her very slowly, and she slid her good hand along the somewhat rusted ladder so that she wouldn't swing about too much. The constriction of the rope on her waist was causing some pain in her wounds, but it was bearable. "There!" she said, when her feet grazed solid ground.
"Is it okay for me to let go?"
She tested her ability to still stand on her own feet. She was starting to get tired, but she would be all right. She steadied herself with her hand on the ladder. "Yes, all good."
He let the rope fall, and it pooled next to her. She glanced at it warily. Why he should carry a noose up his sleeve, she didn't want to know. She quickly undid it from around her waist.
She heard the scraping of metal on stone again as he closed the grate behind himself and quickly descended the ladder and offered to carry her again. She was feeling very tired, but she also had that slight wariness of him in the back of her mind now, and declined.
He picked up the dark lantern from the floor. "Are you certain? It is no trouble to carry you. You weigh nothing."
"I'm fine. I'm strong enough to walk."
He must have misinterpreted her reticence for some sort of wounded pride, for he said: "I never meant to imply that you weren't strong. You were very strong indeed to survive."
At the bottom of the long shaft they had just descended down, there was an opening into a hallway. If you looked through the grate, even during the day time, you would not have been able to see it. Supporting her with his arm, Erik led her. He seemed very familiar with the place—which, Éponine thought, only made sense if he lived down here. It was cold and somewhat damp, and Éponine was still wearing the thin, too-large nightgown. She shivered.
Erik misunderstood her shiver and said, "I apologise about the rats."
She had not even noticed the rodents scurrying out of their way. She laughed. "These look like mice compared to the ones in that Gorbeau dump we used to live in. Before the—well, before." She couldn't remember if she'd told him she'd been arrested, and if she hadn't already let it slip, she wasn't keen to.
Erik stopped walking and tilted his head. "You're quite poor, aren't you?"
Éponine squared her shoulders. "Wasn't always like that. But yes, that's how it is now. Never mind. I get by fine enough. I know all sorts of ways to get something to eat."
"I'm sure you do." There was something she could not identify in his voice. Soft and melancholy.
At long last, they reached the end of the tunnel. Éponine was startled to look down and see water at her feet. There was a faint, bluey glow all around the water's edge. Was this the lake? Erik was busy shining the lantern around until he found a rope, which he began to pull. Éponine could not help but think that, even though he looked rather lithe, there must be very powerful muscles beneath that tailcoat. He pulled until a boat came into view, and he jumped in and waited for it to stabilise before reaching out black-gloved hand to help Éponine in. She settled herself against the cushions in the bow. She was grateful to sit down, even though she would rather have died than admit it. Erik began to row. There really was a lake. What a strange thing!
They seemed to be heading straight towards a wall, but as they approached it, they turned a corner that could not be seen from far away. The bluey light gave way to pitch blackness. The boat struck aground, and Erik jumped out. Éponine heard the landing of his footsteps on a rocky shore. Then, she felt his gloved hand reaching for hers, and he helped her climb ashore as well.
She glanced around, but she could make out nothing in the darkness. Then, a door opened before her. Erik was holding it, and there was the warm glow of candlelight beyond the doorway. Instead of immediately going in, Éponine stood and stared for a moment. From that faint light, she could make out that the door opened out of a plain wall of bricks, which did nothing to even slightly hint that there might be such a comfortable little house inside.
Erik, saw her gaping, and seemed to have that urge to show off, which Éponine herself was never immune to. Taking a candle from inside the house, he closed the door and showed her how he had disguised it so cleverly that you could not even tell there was a door there at all. "It's a very thin façade of bricks, which I placed over the wood of the door. And then, if you press just here..." he showed her how to open it.
Éponine remembered something. "I thought you said I must never see the outside of your house? And now you've just shown me how to get inside."
Erik sighed as he ushered her through the door. "I do not believe you will wish to come back at the end of your time here. But, if you did, I would not try to stop you."
Éponine did not know what that meant, or how she ought to feel about it. She couldn't stop marvelling at the richly panelled walls, the fancy draperies, and the finely carved wooden furniture. She'd delivered letters from her father to places that were decked out as fine as this. She'd kept lookout while the Patron-Minette robbed such houses. But they had all been ordinary, above-the-ground sorts. She still could not comprehend that this house existed in secret beneath the ground, with such a strange soul its only inhabitant.
"All of those fine ladies and gents up there for the shows. They don't even know you're here, do they?"
Erik smirked slightly. "Oh, just rumours and whispers. They call me the Phantom of the Opera."
"Really? That's a bit silly."
"Silly? Well, some do laugh, but the loudest laughers are not the most at-ease." He chuckled, clearly pleased by his status as a sort of Opera bogeyman.
They had passed through the tiny entryway, through the drawing room, and now found themselves back in the little bedroom that Éponine had first woken up in. He had left a single lamp burning beside the bed.
"I'll leave you to rest," Erik said. "But I'm just outside, if you need anything."
"Thank you," Éponine said. When he had gone, she contemplated locking the door, still unsure whether or not she should trust him. But she decided against it. She would have liked to have changed before sliding back into bed again, but she had no more strength left, so it would not be the time to find out if she could manage on her own yet. She crawled into the soft sheets, under the gentle weight of the crisp white coverlet, and let herself drift off to sleep in the embrace of the feathery bed.
—●—●—●—●—
There was the sound of someone playing piano, in the drawing room outside the door. There he went again, playing music when she was trying to sleep—when he should have been sleeping. She pulled the quilt over her head, then a pillow, but it was not enough to drown out the sound. What time was it? She didn't feel she'd been sleeping for long. Éponine was a light sleeper—a habit of sleeping on the street. And Erik, clearly, was not used to having to consider anyone else's sleeping habits. It was not, she thought, a very good combination. She wanted to know what time it was, but not enough to light the lamp to check the clock. So, she just lay there, awake, hoping she'd be able to fall asleep again soon.
It was very beautiful, whatever he was playing. But too restless to make a good lullaby.
The music cut off abruptly, and Éponine was relieved. Finally, she could go back to sleep.
But as she was thinking that thought, there was a knock at the door, and she smelled coffee. "Éponine? It's eight o'clock."
She groaned. "All right, come in."
The door opened, and he brought her the tray. She finally had an appetite again, she realised, as she gratefully accepted the coffee and bread he had brought her.
He hovered uncertainly. "Please stay," she said. "I don't mind the company."
He took a seat in the chair next to the bed.
"I thought you might let me sleep in, after our late night," she said dryly.
He looked a little crestfallen, and started wringing his hands nervously. "I apologise, I don't know why I didn't—yes, you must be very tired. I'm not used to—"
She leaned over and placed her hand on his arm. "I was only joking. Don't take me too seriously."
He smiled, and there was something so genuine in his smile.
She finished her breakfast, and he asked whether she might like to come join him in the drawing room. She said she would like that very much, and would be out in just a moment. He left, and she pushed the bedclothes back and scooted herself to the edge of the bed. She stood. She was still wobbly, but stronger every day. She padded over in her bare feet to the wardrobe and opened it. Though it hurt, she could somewhat move her arm now, if she was very slow and careful. She could move the thumb and the index finger on her left hand, but it was very difficult and the movements were clumsy. The musket ball had gone through just past the index finger, and so the remaining 3 fingers must have been affected, because she could stare at them all she wished and will them to move, and nothing would happen.
She rummaged around, pulling out a linen chemise, which she exchanged the nightgown for. Stockings—when was the last time she'd had stockings? Not since she was a tiny girl in Montfermeil. Then, a plain white cotton corset. Whoever this was made for would have been trim of figure but with plenty of softness and curve, which Éponine did not have very much in the way of, being mostly angles and bones. The shoulder straps did not fit snugly over her skeletal shoulders, and she couldn't quite fill out the cups in front, causing them to gape embarrassingly. After a moment's thought, she grabbed an extra pair of stockings and stuffed them into the front of the corset, admiring the rounded-out figure it gave her. She pulled on a stiff corded petticoat. Then, she chose the plainest dress, which was a dark green plaid with impossibly wide sleeves, and a scooped neck that threatened to come off her shoulders. She supposed the skirt was meant to swing teasingly around her ankles, letting her little shoes peep out as she walked, as she had seen on the fine ladies strolling about the Luxembourg or on the boulevards. But instead, it pooled limply around her feet. She was too short, and it also wanted more petticoats to hold it out, but just the one felt so heavy, she couldn't contemplate layering more.
On the whole, while she didn't have a mirror, she could guess the overall effect was rather that of a little girl wearing her mother's clothes. Still, it felt good to have so many layers of clothing on. She had always felt so self-conscious and exposed in her old rags which had barely covered her body. Now, she felt something like a real lady.
But, these stockings just were not going to stay on, and were too annoying. She pulled those off irritably. She would have to be a lady in bare feet.
She started to leave the room, nearly tripping over her skirt, and then decided she ought to do something with her hair. She had difficulty unbraiding it, as it had tangled together slightly as it dried. She'd nearly forgotten what colour her hair was, underneath all the dirt. It wasn't just brown, it was brown which had a coppery sheen whenever the light hit it. Now that it was clean, and she'd gotten some good food in her, it had a little bit of a shine to it again, as it used to when she was a little girl, and her Maman used to brush her hair and say, "Oh! My pretty little Éponine!" She brushed it, then clumsily tried to braid it again, but got frustrated with her clumsy left hand, and left it loose.
Erik was playing the piano again, and she went out to join him. His back was to her and he was completely absorbed in his playing. She went and stood beside him, and, although she wasn't trying to be sneaky, her movements were innately cat-like. He saw her out of the corner of his eye and startled. He clutched at his mask as though afraid she might try and take it from him. The thought had not even occurred to her.
"What do you think you're doing, sneaking about like that?" he demanded sourly.
"I'm not sneaking about!"
His tone softened. "How long have you been there?"
"I just came in," she said, plopping herself down beside him on the piano bench, because it was the closest seat available, and all of her activity in getting ready had caught up with her, making it imperative that she sit immediately. He seemed uncomfortable with the proximity, shifting his weight slightly to the side, away from her. She propped her elbow on the wood at the edge of the keyboard and cradled her head on her hand. "I liked that a lot. I love music."
"Do you?" His tone was cautious, but there was a glint of childlike excitement in his eyes, behind the mask.
She nodded vigorously, and began a bright little vaudeville tune: "J'ai faim, mon père, pas de fricot. J'ai froid, mon mère, pas de tricot. Grelotte, Lolotte! Sanglote, Jacquot."
Éponine knew she had seen his upper lip curl slightly upward as she began to sing, although he quickly straightened his face and looked impassive. She blushed and felt embarrassed. Her voice wasn't very good, and from the way he played, he was a very talented musician. He must be horrified at her poor, gravelly voice. He was looking at her awkwardly, as though he didn't want to be unkind.
So, she covered it up by bursting into forced laughter and shrugging it off, as though it had been a joke. "I never really sing," she lied. Then, thinking to please him, she said, "Maybe you could teach me?"
"No." He slammed the lid of the piano shut, making her jump and nearly fall off the bench. "I do not teach singing."
Well, there was no need to be so cross about it, she thought. Still feeling a little defensive, she said, "I may not sing much, but I can read, you know. And write."
"I'm sure you can," he said, and just like that, there was a touch of fondness in his voice, where he had been irritated just a second ago. He went and sat in one of the chairs flanking the fireplace, and she came and sat opposite him, trying to think of something else to say. That's when she remembered her resolve to find out Erik's side of the story, regarding what the Daroga had said. Her heart started to pound a little bit as she thought about broaching the apparently forbidden subject. Erik's secrets concern no one but himself. Well, that wasn't true anymore. Since she was here, trapped under the ground with him, they damn well concerned her too. So, she took a deep breath and opened her mouth.
Just be careful.
