MADAME O.G.

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Chapter 2: Up Once More

Christine had not expected to find that Erik ever slept. He seemed never to eat. But he was asleep, there on a divan that had a few hours prior been covered with piles and piles of musical scores. She did not intend to wake him. The pocket-watch called it three o'clock, and that was three o'clock in the morning.

His mask had returned. It was a pity – a pity! She did not want him to remove it. It was too grotesque. Yet every scrap of decency she had demanded it. Had she screamed when she first saw his face? Yes (or she imagined she had, at any rate; she could not remember, it was all confused.) All the same, now she had only one goal in mind, though the rest of her life and her plans had been overturned – she would desensitize herself to that face. Unused to sorting through other people's problems, she hardly knew what was guiding her to that decision, or what it would accomplish; she was driven by an instinctual kind of empathy that directed without explication.

She was too wise, now, to try and remove his mask without warning, however. Unsure of what to do, she paced. Oh, it was a delicate sort of walk she used, but all the same she looked just like Raoul or some other equally afflicted young gentleman thinking through their love-affairs.

Playing the organ to rouse him was discarded as too heavy-handed; she had nothing on which to cook a meal that might wake him with the scent. Although she was quite hungry, having eaten nothing since he had brought her a meat pie from his shopping excursion, she did realize that it was utterly childish to wake him over the issue of the mask. Yet her resolution that it had to come off was firm, and she was impatient!

Finally, her steps drew close to the divan, and her passage seemed to stir him. His eyes opened quickly. He was unused to having another person around, another person to wake him, and therefore he slept lightly. Christine drew back, not knowing what to expect, but she was met with a momentary smile. It transformed Erik's face, or what was visible of it, from a perfect rake of a Don Juan Triumphant into a relaxed, cheerful thing. Almost as soon as she could draw breath to say something ridiculous - "It's good to see you smiling, sir," or "You seem happy this morning; I hope you remain so" – he seemed to catch himself, and composed it into its usual impassive mask.

"Oh no," she couldn't stop herself from saying, "I've never seen you smile before –" and then she stopped, realizing her forwardness.

He raised his good eyebrow. "You seem to wonder at that. Have I not enough to be unhappy about, Christine?" She could not contradict that. "Even dreams provide little happiness. After all, one must always wake from dreams." With that he rose to sit on the divan. Hesitatingly, she moved to alight beside him.

No, she determined, she was not imagining it: he was trembling, ever so slightly. Perhaps shivering would be a better word, because he seemed not at all discomfited; his lips were set in a firm line, and his visible face as immobile as the mask that covered the other half.

"This –" she began to say this mask, but stopped. "This is not a dream," she said. "I shall not disappear." Then, tremulously: "I would have you take off your mask."

His head snapped about so he could pin her with a stare, a stare that would have made little Jammes or Meg Giry run away screaming. Christine was suddenly thrilled: she would not run! Her blood pounded in her veins, suddenly, urged on by excitement. What ever her face revealed, however, it was not that. "You are white already," he said. "Do you know that I can still perfectly envision your last reaction? - and you have not even opened my packages or put on one of your new frocks yet. If you faint again, you shall not put one on till tomorrow."

How ridiculous! she thought. That he would be so concerned about the packages – but she could not contradict a madman, as she imagined him to be, though she could not think but that his madness was curable. "I'm no whiter than I ever am without stage-makeup on," she replied, "and I do not recall fainting. But I shan't, you know. I told you yesterday, or two days ago now."

Without asking further leave of him, she raised one hand slowly, drawing it up the breast of his slightly wrinkled evening coat, then placing it on his bare cheek, smoothing his thick unspoiled hair back. Finally, she moved it across his face, using her nails to pull the finely fitted mask off. It had been attached with the same kind of glue as was often used to secure false noses and beards in the opera; when she had removed it so quickly before, it must have hurt, and she was careful to loosen it first.

Erik did not stop her this time, and if she felt his lips brush the back of her hand as it fell back into her lap with the mask, neither of them mentioned it. She said "thank you," and, leaving the mask on the divan next to him, mounted the stairs to the organ and its bench and found her place in St. Augustine.

A few minutes later, she smelled tea. It seemed that he had come to her conclusion, that neither of them would be able to return to sleep. It was followed by breakfast: he did, it seemed, eat.

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What Christine had found in the packages retrieved from the market for her was exquisite – dresses and all their accoutrements, tailored to her measurements. There were five, some more practical than others. All were startlingly luminous, pale almost to an extreme in Erik's dark home.

If they seemed pale there they were even more so in the darkness of the passages, the black walls reflected in the black water. It was morning at the Opera Populaire; Mme. Giry was warming up the corps de ballet for their rehearsals, and while La Carlotta would almost certainly not have arisen at such a barbarous hour, the supporting parts were likely rehearsing as well, and the set dressers were certainly preparing the stage after the previous night's disheveling.

Though she was certain that Erik was trying to teach her properly how to get out of his home and up into the main part of the Opera, she had no head for it. All the turns and twists looked the same; they arrived at the sloped entrance where he had led her on his white horse, and she could not have led them back again.

Before long, they stood in a familiar hall, looking out into Christine's dressing room. The roses in it, sent by her myriad of admirers two nights before, were still there, drooping now without fresh water; it was dark, but her eyes were quite adjusted to such darkness after so long in the corridors.

"Remember that you promised me that you would return," he said, looking down into her face as though to divine whether she was deceiving him. "Can you remember the way, if I show you the lever that opens this door?"

"No," she admitted.

"Then – I dislike this greatly, not wishing to limit your freedom, but I must find you and take you away. You, however, may name the time. Declare it now, or address a letter to O.G. and send it through Mme. Giry –"

"My lessons," she said. "I thought they would continue."

Faint surprise registered on Erik's face, perhaps at her willingness to return to him so soon, then subsided. "Our lessons then," he said. "Tonight remain in your dormitory; anything else would invite suspicion. Tomorrow the lessons resume in my home. There will be no performance, I am certain. I shall find you tomorrow night before supper. Please be sure to attend to your father's candle then."

With that, he showed her the mirror's latch on passageway's side, and the place in the frame she might push to open it from her dressing-room, and was gone.

Alone once more, Christine looked around. Someone was sure to notice her new frock – weren't they? She was filled with doubts. How could she explain her absence? How could she describe where she had been? Had La Carlotta sung in the three nights she'd been gone, or had the opera been cancelled?

She sat in the darkness and developed her story. A message had come – a most urgent message from her aunt, who lived in a village not far from Paris. Her uncle was dying. She had gone to him, thinking only of that; she had not imagined that she would be gone so long, but of course she could not leave his bedside. Only one person would know that it all was false, that she had no living relatives; but Mme. Giry would hardly tell.

Rising again, she left her dressing room and found her way backstage, searching for Meg. She knew Meg would be frantic – and Jammes, of course, probably spreading rumors of the Ghost already! But she was met by a hubbub that could hardly be put down to only Meg's or even MM. André and Firmin's amazement at losing their second lead soprano in as many nights. The world seemed to know of her disappearance!

"Mon Dieu! La Daaé!" gasped a man she had only ever been introduced to as 'Joscelin,' one of the male ballet dancers that occasionally graced the Opera Populaire's stage. "La Daaé!"

Before she knew what was going on, she found herself borne before a crowd of people to the front of the stage, where rehearsals were in session. Rehearsals, yes, but not for Hannibal: they were not in costume at all, and the set had been cleared. Further productions had indeed been cancelled, it seemed. Astonished, and half-wondering what they were performing next, she blinked out through the bright stage lights to try and make out who Joscelin and the others were pressing her forward to see.

"Christine!" A young man's voice called from below. She tried to place it, to see his face, and only realized who he was when he vaulted up onto the side of the stage. It was M. le Vicomte de Chagny, and he seemed white with worry.

"Monsieur! I knew you were the patron of the Opera Populaire, but it is no way to go on, running about on account of a chorus girl!" she said, not intending flippancy.

"Not for a mere chorus girl – for the chorus girl who sang like an angel, for the chorus girl whose scarf I fetched out of the sea," he said, putting his hands on her shoulders as though to convince himself that she was all right. "But you have been gone three days. Where were you? People do not simply disappear from their dressing rooms without a word! We have called the police after being unable to find you. Hannibal had to be cancelled, for La Carlotta would not sing in an opera so obviously cursed! Where were you?"

Now her acting skills were put to the test. Christine feigned surprise. "But I did leave a note, back in my dressing-room," she said. "What could have happened to it? It was a matter of such urgency, you see; I never meant to cause anyone worry! I received a message on the night I sang in La Carlotta's place; it said that my uncle was dying. Of course I had to go to him. I stayed by his bedside until he passed on, last night, and returned this morning – as you see."

She could tell that glances were being exchanged, both on-stage and off, where she could hardly see. "Your Scandinavian uncle?" the Vicomte asked.

"No," she said, suppressing a stutter. "My mother was French; her brother."

He seemed satisfied, thankfully, but it lasted only a moment. She begged weariness from her journey, declared that she would happily speak with any one who wished to question her the next day ("Oh, no, I am certain that won't be necessary," M. Firmin declared; looking down, she discovered her eyes adjusted enough to see him and several policemen standing just at the foot of the stage). It was no use: the Vicomte followed her as she slipped through the various people backstage.

Hearing his footsteps behind her, she walked as far as she thought she could bear without turning and asking his business; when she did turn, he was right on her heels. Before she could ask him anything, he spoke. "I was standing outside your room that night after you bade me leave," he said. "I waited for hours for you to come out. No one came in with a message, and you did not come out."

Squirming under his gaze, Christine dissembled: "It was a letter mixed in with the roses and things others had sent me. It had been sent that morning direct from my aunt. I must have slipped past you, monsieur! For how else could I leave my dressing room? There is only one door, and no windows at all."

She had a point, and his eyes softened. He had never truly been suspicious, she decided – perhaps he was worried, perhaps that was the word for it. "Won't you call me Raoul, little Lotte?" he asked. "It makes me sad to think that things have changed so much between us."

"Raoul, then," she echoed. "But I am tired. If you wish to be of help to me, send for Meg Giry, the ballet girl. Perhaps men have no especial friends with whom they share their pains, but women do."

"Meg Giry is already here!" piped a voice from behind Raoul. Neither of them had noticed her approach: she was light on her feet. "Christine, Christine, Jammes was putting about that you had been taken by the Opera Ghost! And what a lark; you were only gone off to your uncle's! But I ought not to be such a flimsy little airhead. He died, didn't he? You weren't terribly close to him, or I can't imagine you were since you never saw him. But death is difficult!" And with that not-quite-somber platitude she somehow managed to propel her friend into the dressing-room and shut the Vicomte out. Meg Giry was a long way towards being able to arrange people just as she liked, quite as deftly as her mother did.

"Oh! Meg. I have so much to tell you," Christine began, without thinking. When she paused she saw her blunder; she ought to have simply asked her to take away some flowers, or asked her what happened when La Carlotta was asked to return to the Opera Populaire, or some other inconsequential thing. She could hardly tell the truth – but it was difficult to lie to Meg!

Then again, would Meg believe her? Perhaps Jammes believed in the Opera Ghost, and perhaps Meg did find him a convenient fiction to blame lost ribbons and torn costumes on. An entire girl being taken away was something entirely different. Not only taken for three days to his underground lair, but tutored before that in such a clever way that she believed him to be only her Angel of Music! And after all, she had not believed in the Angel of Music...

"Your uncle. You weren't terribly close to him, were you?" Meg asked, picking at one of the dead flower arrangements halfheartedly.

"No," came the reply, "Not at all. I'd barely seen him; perhaps I'd never seen him after my father died, I think. But he was my last relative, and anyway I needed to go. I was frightened, don't you see?"

"Of what?"

"Oh – the crowds and the noise and the people and being a prima donna! It isn't that it isn't everything I'd ever dreamed of. It was only that it was so sudden. I couldn't let it turn my head, Meg. But I do wish I knew what happened to that note."

Of course there was no note; that would ensure that Meg wouldn't be able to find it, however much she peeked under the desk and into the cupboards and asked whether Christine was certain, absolutely certain, that she'd left it just so. And that deflected things, for a while. They were comfortable together, Christine and Meg, from having lived together in the dormitories of the Opera since they were very young, and if Meg was jealous of Christine's good fortune, she didn't show it.

End Chapter 2

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