A/N – In which the Marquis makes an attempt at heroism, and Meg begins to try to win back her lost following.
Elanor Ainu – thanks for the cookies. :shares:
For Julie – who knows me well enough not to be worried by the last chapter's cliffhanger. ;) – and Gondolier, whose Fraternité has been distracting and inspiring me by turns!
Love and hugs to all reviewers. :)
The blind panic that had seized Erik had long since faded to a dull sense of numbness.
The part of his mind that remained yet sharp and clinical absorbed the news that Antoinette imparted with swift crispness as she strode home beside him: that Christine, crossing a street carelessly, had failed to see the carriage bearing down on her. By seemingly impossible coincidence, one of the stage hands from the Opéra Populaire had seen the incident, and had been sent to the Girys' house, where Christine now lay under the care of one of Paris' most eminent doctors.
The larger part could only comprehend the enormity of one fact: Christine was injured, perhaps dying – although Antoinette was, perhaps deliberately, vague about the details, her grim manner and hurry to return to Christine gave him to know that she was still in danger – and the last thing she would ever hear his voice – the only part of his unworthy self that she had ever come close to loving – say was "I do not love you": a statement so transparently untrue that only the fear of the encroaching hysteria he could feel threatening prevented him from laughing at the irony.
Perhaps there comes a point beyond pain when the world seems so like a nightmare that there is nothing to be done but to endure as best one can and wait to wake up. It was in a state of passivity that Erik entered the Giry house, which was a scene of utter confusion. Annette, the Girys' little maid, was rushing around anxiously like a frightened rabbit, alternately carrying bowls of hot water and other items vaguely appropriate to a sickroom and comforting her little mistress, whose sobbing Erik could hear even through the walls.
It was the sound of Meg crying, a high-pitched keening that rose and fell like a child's heartbreak, that suddenly returned him to himself, and panic seized him. He caught Antoinette's arm.
"I must see her."
She shook her head. "Not yet."
"Not yet … what in God's name have you brought me here for?" He seized her shoulders and shook her, blinded by terror to the look on her face. "The last rites – is that it? I must be here to witness her final breath?"
Antoinette shook his hands from her shoulders and stepped back, raising her head with scornful disdain.
"Annette will show you to the parlour," she told him in a tone that brooked no argument. Lowering her voice, "You will be of no service to her in this state. There is brandy in the parlour; take it if you feel you must." Anticipating his protest, she shook her head. "I know you do not drink. Every man has his limit."
Antoinette's brusque dismissal was more effective than a kinder attempt at persuasion would have been, and Erik obeyed.
The parlour was uncomfortably bright, and Erik extinguished the oil lamps, leaving only the flickering of the dying fire to cast light over the room. He sat down, and almost immediately rose to his feet again. He could not bear to sit – such inactivity felt like the worst sort of desertion. Had he been in a calmer frame of mind, he would have recognised the absurdity of his own frantic movement: he was suffering the sort of superstitious guilt children feel: feeling Christine's injury to be his fault, the remedy seemed to lie within his keeping. If I sit down she'll die. Had he been able to formulate his unease into such unequivocal language, he might have been able to expose his folly and throw off his terrible restless distraction.
He might never have turned to the brandy decanter on the table.
Meg came out of Christine's room quietly, shutting the door behind her. She sat down on a hard chair and let out her breath in a long sigh. She wiped her forehead with a pristine white handkerchief, then folded it neatly and replaced it in her pocket. Her mind was completely blank; she felt drained. The long hours in the oppressive darkness of the sick room, the low voice of the doctor issuing orders which only her mother's phenomenal organisation could possibly have executed, and, worst of all, the occasional moan from Christine as she twisted under Meg's hands.
All in preparation for those magical words: "She is out of danger."
But now Meg's exhaustion was swiftly catching up with her, and her relief lay muffled, blanketed under thick layers of cloudy fatigue.
She had only one task left to perform, and it was perhaps the most difficult of all that she had been asked to do that day: reassure the man whose silent presence in the parlour had been driving the household half mad with tension all day that his protégée's blood was not, after all, on his hands. She was not afraid of him: her mother's years of service and his tacit thanks had long since taught her to disregard corps gossip that he was the son of the Devil or – perhaps more frighteningly – a ghost. It had been he who had secured her promotion to head of her row while still resident at the Opéra so many years ago; and she knew that his early approbation of her was the only reason she had been noticed by the management and consequently promoted. She was fully aware of what she owed to him; and whilst she did not fear him as a ghost, as a man she could not suppress the prickling of apprehension of the knowledge of what he would do on account of his one weak spot: the woman who now lay sleeping in the small bedroom across the passage.
Wearily, Meg stood, smoothing out the wrinkles in her dress with automatic neatness, and walked towards the parlour.
There was no time like the present, after all.
The room was almost completely dark. Through the gloom, Meg could see a figure seated in an armchair, leaning forward, his head in his hands. The only sound was the insistent patter of the rain drumming on the windowsill, coming through the window and soaking the carpet beneath.
As he heard her come in he rose abruptly and moved to stand with his back to her at the window, the light making an imposing silhouette of his tall figure.
"She is dead?" he asked, almost aggressively, as if somehow addressing the worst would make him better able to bear it. Meg felt her heart stir with pity at his obvious grief and took a step towards him, reaching out one hand to him.
"No! Oh, no."
He turned abruptly back to her.
"No?" The word quivered in the air between them like the note of a finale.
Meg shook her head dumbly, noticing with a faint chill of fear the empty brandy decanter on the table, a decanter which had only that morning been full.
"Dr. Drysdale says she's passed the worst. She's going to be all right."
She heard him draw a shuddering breath, and as if from sudden weakness he sank into the armchair by the fire and buried his head in his hands.
"Oh my God."
Meg felt her fear melt away, and without thinking, she moved to kneel beside him.
"There, there," she murmured, touching her hand to his arm. "She's going to be fine." She felt him shudder under her touch with one gulping sob. "It's all going to be all right, I promise. She'll get well; and then …"
He shook his head blindly, and silence descended. "I should go," he said at last, looking around for his cloak and hat. "She wouldn't want me to be here when she wakes."
"No!" Meg reached out to stop him. "You must wait. You must go in and see her when she wakes."
He looked at her and shook his head. "She wouldn't want it."
"Don't be ridiculous!"
It had been said among the corps that Meg Giry was growing more like her mother every day. For the first time, she could recognise her mother's tone in her own voice: sharp, unwilling to suffer the foolishness of others; and, although the sensation surprised her as much as it obviously surprised Erik, she found she rather liked it.
"She is awake now. You must go in to see her, if only to say goodbye."
Slowly, he nodded, and Meg released her breath.
"Come on then," she concluded more gently. "This way."
The room was dark, but Erik barely noticed it as he made his way over to the bed and knelt beside the small, still figure looking so pale and fragile under the blanket.
"Christine?" Meg whispered.
Erik heard Christine murmur softly in response, her face still hidden in the shadows. Meg moved to sit on the bed beside her and gently stroked her hair.
"Sweetheart," she whispered. "Erik's come to see you."
Erik heard Christine breathe his name, her voice confused and disoriented.
"Christine?" he murmured. He saw her hand move across the covers, and reached out to take it, before remembering himself and withdrawing. "How do you feel?"
He saw a tear slide down her cheek, translucent in the dim moonlight filtering through the curtains.
"What do you care?"
Meg impulsively took Christine's hand to quiet her, glancing anxiously towards Erik, kneeling motionless beside the bed, his face like stone.
"Christine ..." His voice was a kiss, a caress, and Christine closed her eyes on tears.
She turned away, clutching Meg's hand tightly, another tear sliding down her cheek, belying the anger in her voice. "Don't feel you have to pretend to care for my sake!"
"Christine, hush!" Meg looked up at Erik, distressed.
Erik rose, a black shadow unfurling into stiffly rigid posture. "You are, of course, quite right," he said stiffly, his expression impossible to gauge in the dimness of the room. "Please allow me to wish you a speedy recovery." He turned to Meg, stifling the protests that had risen automatically in her throat. "I suggest you contact the Marquis de St Cyr," he said shortly, turning and disappearing through the door before she could speak.
Christine dissolved into tears and turned her face towards the pillow. Meg rose, and ran out of the room just in time to hear the front door slam behind him. She stumbled down the stairs, tripping on her skirt, and dashed out into the street. Her heart pounding, she scanned the street anxiously for him, but to no avail; he had disappeared.
She stood still on the steps of the house for a long moment, one hand at her temples in a mute gesture of frustration, her hair coming loose from its pins and being swept every way by the wind.
She glanced up and down the street one last time, then sighed and stepped back over the threshold, disregarding the autumn leaves that had blown in as she shut the door behind her.
St Cyr came later that evening in immediate response to a message Antoinette had sent, and stayed with Christine until she fell asleep, whereupon he retired to the parlour to drink tea with Antoinette and wait for her to wake again. Meg, who fell asleep in her chair a little after midnight, did not see the way his handsome eyes darkened as Antoinette told him, in response to his question of how it had happened, that Christine had been allowed to make her own way home after a singing lesson.
It was about three days later that Christine was finally well enough to sit up in bed and take up her embroidery again. Meg, seated on a small stool at her bedside to keep her company, found her mind wandering more and more frequently from her own slightly crooked rose, and finally she abandoned the effort as a bad job.
"Christine," she began.
Her friend looked up from her own precisely-stitched flower. She yet looked pale and tired, and Meg suspected that she was not sleeping well. A pervading sadness seemed to have overcome her whole being; and although she was sweet and polite as ever with St Cyr and the Girys, Meg could not help noticing the distant sorrow in her friend's eyes.
Meg moved closer to her and took her hands, an overwhelming rush of tenderness coming over her.
"Tell me what the matter is," she begged. "Tell me what's wrong."
Christine looked away and took up her sewing again.
"Dear Meg," she said, not meeting her friend's eyes. "You are dramatic. I think perhaps you have been working at the Opéra too long." The flash of pain that sketched briefly through her eyes as she realised what she had said gave Meg the reassurance she needed.
"It's him, isn't it." Her tone did not suggest a question, and Christine did not receive it as such. "Christine, what did he say to you that day?"
The stage hand who had witnessed Christine's accident that day had told Meg all he had seen: that Christine, clearly distressed, had not been looking where she was going.
"Cryin' and all, she was," he confided. "Ran right out into the street. It's a wonder she warn't killed." He nodded sagely. "She were that lucky."
From this, and from the fact that Meg knew Christine had planned to meet Erik for a singing lesson after rehearsal, she had deduced that something had happened between them to upset Christine to such an extent that she could no longer be trusted to cross the street with care; and Erik's own grief and her friend's incomprehensible rudeness later that day had served to convince Meg that Christine was keeping something from her. She had long suspected that Christine's feelings towards Erik were not what they had been so many years ago when he had first taught her.
Christine dipped her head, her hair falling forward to cover her face. It took a moment for Meg to realise that she was crying.
"Oh, Meg," came brokenly from behind her hair. "I had meant to tell him – oh, it doesn't matter – but he was so cruel …" She shook her head distractedly. "And he won't teach me anymore …"
Meg leaned forward and put her arms around her friend, and Christine dissolved into complete incoherence.
"All right, my love," she whispered, stroking Christine's hair. "We will mend it."
St Cyr stepped back from the door. He felt vaguely guilty: he was a man with very strict notions of honour, and listening at doors was the sort of grubby, contemptuous betrayal of trust he had always despised. Christine appeared to have the effect on him of making him forget everything that was due of him – he still felt sick when he thought of how close he had come to betraying Raoul and begging Christine to come away with him all those years ago in England – and he hated himself for the weakness he could not shake off.
He still loved her; and, although he entertained a healthy contempt for adolescent protestations of everlasting love, he could not imagine himself ever being able to stop. She did not love him: he knew that; one day he was sure he would be able to accept it; but what was harder to absorb was the implied message of what she had told Meg.
St Cyr only distantly heard a knock at the door as he sat down and rested his elbows on his knees.
Raoul had told him all about the Phantom of the Opera, of course; and the minute he had met the silent, tense stranger in Christine's music room, and her hasty search for a lie had yielded the half-truth that he was her music teacher, he had recognised the mask and the scantly-veiled danger of the man as surely as though he had known him all his life. He had worried for days over Christine's – surely unwise? – association with a man he knew to be so dangerous; but he could not forget the sadness that had haunted Raoul's eyes as he told the story. His voice came back to St Cyr as clearly as though they stood in the same room once again.
"He loved her so, Armand. And I fear I did him an injustice; I was so afraid he would hurt her. But now I think he never would have done: even at the end, although he might have killed me, he never tried to hurt her. And now I think that … perhaps he loved her … just as I do."
But Raoul had been wrong. St Cyr clenched his fists, anger beginning to seep through him. Dear, kind Raoul, always so eager to see the best in everyone – even the man who had tried to kill him! But he had been wrong. The Phantom was still dangerous – and now he had hurt Christine, and upset her so that only by a miracle had she escaped serious injury – perhaps even –
The thought that he could have lost her forever made St Cyr go cold again, but this time his pain was tainted with rage. It was the Phantom's fault; he to whom Christine had been so kind, imparted her inherent sweetness and charity despite his terrible flaws.
St Cyr stood, unable to bear the inactivity of sitting still, and strode to the door. But as he opened the door he stopped still – for leaving through the front door was a tall man whose face he could not see.
Antoinette closed the front door behind Erik and sighed. He had come, as he came every day, punctual and abrupt as ever, for her report on Christine's progress. He did not go in to see Christine herself, and became instantly aloof if it was suggested that he might: Antoinette privately suspected that he had simply found himself unable to stay away from her entirely and this small concession of daily visits under the pretence of monitoring her progress was the only indulgence he permitted the emotion he had still not quite learned to conceal.
She turned back to go in to Christine and started to find St Cyr coming towards her, his face distressed.
"Who was that?" he asked her urgently.
Taken aback by his tone, Antoinette replied, "You startled me." It was an answer that he might have accepted from Meg's fluttering abstraction, but not her mother. Her vagueness gave him all the truth he needed.
"It was him, wasn't it?"
Antoinette drew herself up to her full height and employed a stare which was, perfected over years of ballet tuition, guaranteed to bring a herd of errant ballet rats to their pink-clad knees. "I'm sure I don't know who you mean."
Secretly, she was afraid. The Marquis had been spending every daylight hour at their house ever since Christine's accident, and she had never seen him other than affable. He had been occasionally weary or anxious, but never less than absolutely courteous and genuinely amiable: now he looked furious, and Antoinette's years of dealing with angry lovers of her girls had taught her that a slow-burning fire raised in a mild-tempered man was infinitely more dangerous than the swift, violent passion of another.
The Marquis fixed her with a smouldering look that sent fear chilling through her.
"Thank you, Antoinette," he said grimly, and set off into the darkness after the black-clad figure still to be seen striding down the street.
