Chapter Twenty

Where is Suzette?

The Viscount wrung his hands nervously as the coach bounced over the country road. He hated leaving his beloveds alone with the monster. He wished the horses would go faster, so that he could find this little wench and return her to him with great haste.

"Please, Dear Lord!" he whispered over and over, "Keep them safe until I get there and have mercy on me, for if he has laid a hand on either of them, I'll tear him to pieces with my bare hands!" Monsieur le Viscount bounced in the carriage for nearly two hours before they reached the town.

"This waiting must be what hell is like," he said to himself as the coachman searched for the right road. When they finally arrived before the home of Madame Colette, he flew from the carriage and up the path. As he went he saw a bit of movement at the window. He banged on the door, and waited the merciless minutes until a kindly and stern old lady opened the door for him.

"Where is Suzette?" he asked wearily and without any formalities. The woman's face was as white as a ghost's.

"I'm sorry, Monsieur. I'm the only one here tonight." She was lying and he knew it.

"I beg your pardon, Madame, but I saw someone at the window." Her eyes were wide and but her voice never quavered.

"Perhaps you saw the neighbor's cat. I am watching him tonight and he likes to sit at the window and watch the squirrels."

"I would like to see for myself." He said firmly. She decided to take the gamble.

"Very well then, if it will please you." She stepped aside and he entered the living room calling out, "Suzette? Suzette, are you here?" There was no answer and the Viscount turned toward Madame Colette in a state of desperation.

"Please, help me. It is of the utmost importance that I return home as quickly as possible, but I can't leave without Suzette."

"Why do you need her? Just leave her alone."

"I can't! Erik has sent me to find her and bring her to him!" The woman's mouth fell open and she drew a breath sharply.

"You've actually talked to Erik?" she asked in disbelief.

"Yes and I have to get his little girl to him now!"

"Did you see him? Did you actually see the ghost?"

"Yes I've seen him, Madame. As we speak, he is in my apartment. But he is no ghost, Madame! He is a madman and a monster! He is a trickster and a killer, quite alive and quite dangerous and he is now alone with my wife and child. That is why I must get home as quickly as I can." At this moment, a young girl came hurdling toward him, brandishing a lamp nearly too large for her to swing.

"How dare you!" she was shrieking at him, "How dare you say such cruel things about my Erik! You are the monster! You are the killer! I saw you last night! You shot him and tried to kill him!" She attempted to hit him with the lamp, but he pried it away from her and held her down. She was crying now and trying desperately to strike him with her small fists. "Where is he?" she demanded, "What have you done to my friend?"

"Be still, and I will take you to him. You needn't be afraid, young lady. I won't hurt you, and I won't hurt him unless he threatens my family. He is with my wife, Christine and he sent me to fetch you."

"Why should he send you if he is really safe? Why didn't he come for me himself?"

"He couldn't go out in the daylight, because he lost his mask last night, in the fight." She stared suspiciously at the Viscount. She couldn't be sure.

"Do you promise you will take me to him? Do you promise that we are safe and that you'll let me see him?"

"I swear it," he said solemnly. Suzette looked to Madame Colette for help.

"I don't trust him, Lapin. I don't like you going off with him."

"I don't have a choice though, do I? If Erik is there and he needs me?" The two friends embraced and Madame whispered to her, "Please, be careful." She nodded gravely and said to the Viscount, "All right, I will come."

"Good, then let's hurry."

"Wait! I must go to the house first." And she pushed past him and out the door. She was very fast and the Viscount had trouble keeping up. She went around the back, pushing her way through a hidden opening in the thick brush, and entered the house by slipping through a large window, which she pushed open easily. The Viscount found this a curious way to enter a house since the window had been right along side a door, but he considered that since she lived there, she knew what she was doing. He went to the sill and looked around the room. It was a funny looking space. He couldn't decide what its purpose might be. It was about six or seven feet wide and very long. The floor was wood and the walls were white and unfurnished. The only feature was a small door, which was also painted white and almost invisible. The girl opened this door and pulled out a cloak, which she put on, a mask, which she pocketed, and to his amazement, a rather frightening knife, which she sheathed and hid within her cloak. She glared at him and said, "Don't think that because I'm a girl, I don't know how to the use that. We've been attacked before." He wasn't in any position to doubt her. He moved from the window and she stepped out.

"What would have happened if you had used the door?" he asked.

"What door? Did you see a door in there?" She was right. There had been no door in that room except for the little cloak closet.

"Well if that outside door doesn't lead anywhere, why do you have it?"

"Who said it doesn't?" she responded mischievously, "If you're so curious, why don't you open it and find out?" He gave up. There was not enough time to think about the mysterious doors that led nowhere or anywhere. They hurried across the dewy grass and she glared at him with distrust as the climbed in and started off.

She sat as far away from him as she could get and pulled herself into a tight ball. She watched his every move with hate, but said nothing for nearly half an hour. By that time the silence had become maddening to the Viscount and he asked her, "How did you get home from Paris, Suzette?"

"None of your business." she snapped.

"How long have you been living there with him."

"For many years."

"Don't you think that your family is worried about you?" Suzette found his tone condescending and she didn't like it one bit.

"I have no family."

"Oh you poor thing! Then there was no one to miss you when he took you?" Suzette blinked. She wasn't sure that she understood his question.

"No, I was alone."

"How awful!" he exclaimed, "You must have been so frightened." Suzette had been frightened, very frightened. She hadn't anywhere to go and there were men out for her life, until Erik had saved her. But that wasn't what the Viscount meant and she knew it. He was making her quite angry and she was about to tell him so when he continued,

"He is an awful creature. He seems to have no conscience. To take a small girl and lock her away, for his own pleasure! He is a monster! How I hate him! Do you hate him for it?" She stared at him. She was surprised that his words didn't make her to burst with anger but this time, they only saddened her. She shook her head and sighed. He didn't understand.

"No, I don't hate him. How could I?" Now it was the Viscount who seemed sad.

"And neither could Christine." His tirade became pensive silence as he thought of Christine and Erik.

"But why should you hate him?" she interrupted timidly.

"Why? Because, he is my rival. Don't you see? He is my rival for Christine. For that reason alone, we would be bitter and jealous enemies, even if he didn't have the excuse of being a trickster, an abductor, and a murderer!"

"Stop it!" the child cried, "My Erik is none of those things! But what do you mean that he is your rival for Christine?" She recalled Erik's eyes as he watched the primadonna floating across the stage. 'He's in love,' she'd thought, and perhaps she hadn't been too far off. "Was Erik courting Christine?" At this, the Viscount burst with cruel laughter and exclaimed.

"Well I suppose he was in his own way! I hated him the moment I first learned of him. I begged Christine to let us leave Paris right away and get away from him, but she wouldn't leave. She was determined to sing a good-bye for him that night before we claimed our freedom. I was there that night, in the audience, ready to gather her up after her final bow, and whisk her away to some place safe from and the angels and phantoms which haunted her. But Erik had plans of his own. He abducted her from the stage, right in the middle of her aria! He dragged her down into the cellars of the opera house and tied her up down there. When I went to rescue her, he threw me into his chamber of horrors. He demanded that she agree to marry him and threatened to blow up the entire opera house and us with it if she refused." Suzette was astounded. She couldn't bring herself to believe it.

"I doubt that he would really do that," she said at last.

"Nonsense. He would have killed us all, Christine, myself, himself, and half of Paris. Suzette, he has no qualms about killing. In fact, I am astounded that they haven't found your body laying in a ditch somewhere." She was horrified.

"Well he didn't kill you," she retorted indignantly.

"No, he didn't."

"And he didn't marry her."

"No, not really, but he was content with her promise for a short time while she and I were in agony."

"Then she did hate him?"

"No," he said with a touch of pain in his voice, "She doesn't hate him and she never did. She loves him, you see. She wouldn't admit it to me, or to him, or even to herself, but she does all the same. It's a dark, tragic kind of love, which I will never understand. But she knew as well as I, and he knew as well as she, that she could never be his wife, and survive. But he didn't care. He would have her either way." Suzette thought this over. She believed the Viscount's story now. She loathed the words that he used to describe it but she knew that the essence of what he said was truth. But it was missing something important. Suzette realized what the Viscount hadn't said and she asked him, "How did you get away?" The Viscount just shook his head as if he still couldn't believe it.

"That is the most insane part of the whole terrifying event. He had us! We were helplessly at his mercy. We were moments away from being blown into pieces, but somehow Christine mustered up some courage, and agreed to become his wife if he would only set me free. The monster was not expecting this. I believe that he had fully intended to kill us all that night. But he agreed to spare my life and that of another man, if she would agree to be his wife. But then…and who can say why… but just when he was offered everything he asked for and more, he stopped and let us go. Why, I'll never understand." The Viscount stopped and looked up at Suzette and was immensely shocked to see her leaning back in her seat with her arms folded and a warm smile on her face. Suzette was smiling because she understood what the Viscount had apparently not noticed or simply couldn't bring himself to believe. She knew why Christine couldn't leave him that night. She knew why she couldn't hate him for taking her against her will, and she knew why Erik had allowed them to leave unharmed. M. De Chagney didn't know the secret but Erik knew, Christine knew, and now so did Suzette. She liked having this great secret but there was still something that she didn't understand.

"Why did Erik keep this from me? Why didn't he tell me about Christine?" It was such a lovely story and although he rarely spoke of his past, it surprised her that he had not told her of these events. The Viscount looked away and shrugged his shoulders; "Perhaps he didn't think that you would forgive him, if you knew." Suzette considered this for a moment. It was as good an theory as any.

"Well I do," she confided in the Viscount and he replied, "Yes, Well I guess you always will." And they were silent for the rest of the journey.