A/N – As requested, Antoinette's past and more Meg angst. And before everyone gets angry with Erik, do remember that Don Juan was completed long before Meg told him how she was feeling.
The Bible quotation is from Exodus 34 of the King James Version, if anyone's interested; and the name Carbury comes from Anthony Trollope's The Way We Live Now.
This chapter is for John Owen Jones, who left Phantom on Saturday, and for everyone else who will miss him as much as I will. HM's will never be the same again.
Meg lay on her bed, perfectly still, her eyes burning behind closed lids. The rest of the corps had gone to rehearsal, all solicitously concerned for her, all faithfully promising to tell her mother that she was unwell. Nicole had offered to stay with her, but had been rebuffed.
She did not open her eyes as she heard the quick, precise sound of her mother's footsteps entering the room.
"You won't be ready for the opening of Don Juan if you don't come to rehearsal." Antoinette did not sound reproachful, and Meg sat up.
"I'm not going to be in Don Juan." She wanted to sound steady and resolute, but tears somehow crept into her voice and made her defiant statement the pitiful whine of a child.
Antoinette sat down on the edge of her daughter's bed.
"Why not?" she asked evenly.
Meg took her copy of the libretto from her bedside table. "He has cast me as a prostitute." She shook the folder savagely, and half of the pages spilled onto the floor. "In the great work of his life, she is his wronged, virginal heroine, and I am a whore." She threw the folder to the floor, ignoring the hot tears that spilled down her cheeks. "He may be able to frighten her into performing roles she doesn't want; not me."
She evaded her mother's hand. "Don't try to cosset me as though I were five years old. I won't do it, and that's all there is to it."
Antoinette Giry stepped precisely through the caverns, avoiding the pools of standing water where damp had dripped from the ceiling, her lantern illuminating walls slick with water and green algae.
She was confident in her route: this was a path she had trodden many times before. Nevertheless, she set her lantern down with a louder-than-necessary clatter several times, clicking her hard-soled shoes consciously against the rock as she walked: she was fully conscious of the wisdom of making Erik aware of her presence in the lair before she came close enough to his house to incite suspicion in him.
When he finally materialised out of the darkness to meet her, she handed him her lantern with deliberate courtesy and followed him calmly through the cellars to his house.
Once there, she sat easily down in one of the thickly-stuffed armchairs while Erik disappeared into the kitchen to produce tea, and glanced around the room. A leather-bound book of thick, high-quality paper lay on the table next to her: picking it up, she glanced through it. The first pages were filled with sketches of the ballet corps – Antoinette recognised her daughter's dainty features more than once – and the chorus, in various garbs from different operas, finely-executed overviews of life in the Opéra. As Antoinette continued to look through the pages, she saw the swiftly-drawn sketches of the Opera House's employees give way to a single enduring theme: Christine in ballet dress, graceful in movement as she extended a hand towards the light; silent and melancholy in her dressing room; closely-observed, minute depictions of the delicate contours of her face; in colour and ink and charcoal, countless replicas of her face and body in every conceivable situation around the Opera House. Towards the end of the sketchbook, Antoinette began to notice subtle differences in the pictures: Christine was more beautiful, more distant, her flaws imperceptibly smoothed out; an ideal depiction of a remotely worshipped goddess instead of the intimate representation of a lover's face. She did not look quite real, and Antoinette might have fancied she was looking at a porcelain doll.
The last picture in the sketchbook was drawn in gentle, soft pastel colours with delicate, precise lines. In it, Christine stood encircled by Raoul's arms, her head resting on his chest. Their hands were linked: on the fourth finger of Christine's left hand, half-hidden in Raoul's hand, a slim diamond engagement band caught the light.
Beneath contented, half-closed eyes, Christine was smiling.
Antoinette looked up as Erik re-entered the room, stopping abruptly as he saw his sketchbook in her hands.
"In general, I like them," she remarked, conversationally. "There are one or two I'm not so fond of" – she turned a few pages to a rendering of Christine in charcoal, lying asleep on the couch in her dressing room, her hands curled beneath her pillow, her hair riotous around her shoulders, the blanket slipping away from her to expose slender ankles and delicate, tapering feet bare against the soft velvet of the couch – "but as a collection, I think they're rather pretty."
Erik put down the tea tray on the table, and took the book from her hands. He closed it with a snap.
"Thank you," he said coolly, recovering his composure. "However, as I am sure you have not come all this way merely to discuss my artistic aspirations, perhaps you might like to tell me why you have."
Antoinette raised one eyebrow at his unfriendly tone.
"I want to talk about Meg," she said, and saw him draw his head back.
"She was not at rehearsal this morning," he remarked, taking refuge behind a wall of formal courtesy. "I hope that she is not unwell."
"She does not intend to perform."
"What!" For the first time, Antoinette saw real animation in him as he put down his teacup sharply on the table. "Why not?"
Antoinette raised one eyebrow. "What girl of Meg's age would like to be cast as a loose woman in an opera written by the man whose esteem is most important to her?"
Erik appeared bewildered. "But it's the largest part for a dancer in the opera. I thought she would be pleased." His brow furrowed. "I meant it as a compliment."
Antoinette wondered momentarily how Erik and Meg could have been friends for so long, and know each other so well, and yet misunderstand each other so fundamentally.
"You do know, I take it, that Meg has formed something of an attachment to you."
Erik's eyes clouded. "She said something of the sort at the masquerade ball." He shook his head distractedly. "She's only a child, Antoinette; what am I to say to her?"
"I suggest you don't cite that particular reason, considering that she is less than two months younger than Christine."
His eyes wandered involuntarily to the sketchbook, and he made a sound of abject frustration.
"Who is no more than a child herself. I do realise the absurdity of this situation, Antoinette, never think that I don't!" He threw himself into his chair, angry frustration dissipating into sorrow. "She seems so sad, Antoinette. What can I do to make her smile again?"
Antoinette swallowed the ache in her chest. "Nothing," she said, finally admitting defeat. "All she wants is your love; and that, alas, cannot be given of your own volition."
"My love is worth nothing. Why should she want it?" He shook his head. "She is your daughter, Antoinette, where is your common sense in her?"
Antoinette smiled sadly. "No woman has common sense when she is in love."
Erik did not comment, and Antoinette wondered whether he was remembering the circumstances under which they had first met: a time of Antoinette's life in which she had well proved that maxim true.
She had been a serious girl even then: ballet was her only love, and while the other girls in the corps were gossiping or sneaking around with suitors, Antoinette was more likely to be found alone in a rehearsal room, stretching or practising the trickier steps from the new production. Erik had watched her and been impressed by her industry: and when he first saw Lord Graham Carbury, a young Englishman with a rich father and a reputation for dissipation, cast an appraising eye over the serious young ballerina, he knew a moment of disapproving anxiety.
It was inevitable, he later reflected. A girl could not be so alone as Antoinette Giry and still resist the lure of a man's love: and Carbury, through what Erik suspected to be long experience, knew exactly how to win a woman's favour.
The first time flowers appeared in Antoinette's dressing room, she appeared puzzled, and shared them out amongst the other ballet rats. But as time wore on, the flowers began to be received with a blush of pleasure, and she was less and less often to be found using her spare time to practise ballet or study her books.
It came as no surprise to Erik when he spied the sober, reserved ballerina crying in one of the small, disused dressing rooms towards the back of the Opera House. He spoke kindly to her – in those days, it was not unusual for the Opera Ghost to speak with members of the corps; it was only as time wore on that he began to assume the mantle of menace that made his comfortable isolation so much easier – and it was with a sinking of the heart that he learned that, before growing tired of her, as he inevitably had, Carbury had managed to seduce Antoinette into his bed. The worst had followed: she was with child.
At the time, Antoinette seemed more distraught by the loss of the man she loved than by her immediate predicament. A dancer rarely returned to the stage after bearing a child; and Antoinette, all alone in the world after the sudden deaths of her parents three years previously, had nowhere to go during her confinement. The scandal would be ruinous: and Poligny, although an inherently kind man, had surprisingly strict moral values. The rules were well understood among the ballet corps: girls who disgraced themselves could not count upon the Opéra for support.
Only the Ghost's intervention prevented Antoinette from being expelled from the Opéra on the spot. As it was, she was placed in a convenient, if undistinguished, flat not far from the Opéra for the duration of her confinement, and she returned to the corps, quietly, a year later.
From this unusual act of kindness on Erik's part had their friendship grown. Erik admired conscientiousness in anyone who worked in the Opéra, and Antoinette's situation had touched him deeply. She was so young, and despite her loss of judgment – and what woman does not err in her judgment when a handsome man promises her the sky? – he believed her to be a good woman with high principles and a capacity to do much good among the other girls.
Antoinette, for her part, was desperately lonely after Graham's desertion: a quiet, sober girl, she had never been given much to close female friendships, and the other ballet rats, with hypocrisy that Erik found almost unbearable, shunned her in her disgrace.
Gradually, hesitantly, had his conscientious observation of her well-being developed into friendship, and when she returned to the Opéra, she took on the intermediary role of his messenger as silent testament to her gratitude.
Hours later, Antoinette gone, Erik sat back in his chair, shaking his head slowly. There was nothing of the young Antoinette's fire in the woman he saw today: she had poured the love she had once given to the worthless Lord Carbury into his child, and she devoted herself to Meg's well-being as utterly as a tigress with her cub. She was fiercely protective of all the girls in her corps, and he knew she was determined that none of them should make the same mistakes as she had. Her disapproval was enough to end a budding romance between one of her girls and an enterprising young man before it had even begun; and he found himself wondering, with only the faintest tinge of bitterness, why she had not dismissed Raoul de Chagny as soon as his interest in Christine became apparent.
Even as he asked himself the question he knew the answer. Protect them as she might from the predatory advances of idle young men, Antoinette would never seek to hinder her girls' chances of loving marriages with good men, and Raoul de Chagny was, unquestionably, one of the best.
Damn him.
He lifted his sketchbook into his hands, turning it absently between his fingers, and opened it to the last picture.
Christine stood in Raoul's arms, her eyes half-closed, her hand held loosely by his. Time and again had he sought to draw Christine in his own arms, to picture the smile in her eyes even as his cold fingers closed around hers, but the images were never real. The expression in her eyes, even in one-dimensional charcoal, faded to revulsion as soon as his shadow cast itself over her, and he could not capture the correct perspective between them: the thought of her in his arms was so remote, so impossible, that even his artistic imagination could not manifest itself to make it real.
Erik shut the book and pushed it away from him.
He sat on the sofa for a long time, his hands steepled beneath his chin, thinking.
Antoinette pulled the pins out of her hair and shook her head, allowing her hair to fall loose around her shoulders. She slipped off her shoes. Her head and feet ached, and the skin on her face felt tight.
"My love is worth nothing. Why should she want it?"
In that one statement lay the root of the problem between her daughter and Erik. My love is worth nothing. Erik could not believe that Meg's feelings were true; for who could love him or want his love in return?
Antoinette rested her head against the back of her chair and closed her eyes. Inevitably, as naturally as spring follows winter, her thoughts crossed the Channel, as they always did whenever she allowed herself the luxury of silence to hear her memory speak.
Graham.
Almost twenty years on, and still the sound of his name could produce a rush of emotion just beneath her sternum. How she had loved him! And how she had sinned in that love.
She curled her arm around her waist. Love was no excuse, she knew that. She had given away the most precious gift within her keeping to a man who would not marry her; and although she knew there could be no redemption for her, she had so prayed that her sins would not be visited upon her daughter.
Her Bible lay on the table beside her. She did not need to open it to see the words that had so haunted her nights burn before her eyes.
And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, 'The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.'
The Bible's grim prophecy had been true: a lifetime of penance, of rigidly denying herself any freedom that could lead to such weakness again, had not been enough to purge her sin; and now those she loved best were suffering for her fault.
Antoinette's head fell back; for the first time in years her cheeks were stained with tears. It was too late: she had led four young people to the edge of the fire, and now she did not know how to save them from it.
Meg was sitting alone in a rehearsal room, playing the piano. She was a surprisingly precise pianist: years of Erik's tuition had bred a love of accuracy in her, and she had come to find that the piano could provide solace just as dancing could.
Even now, her affection for Erik strangled by anger and hurt, she could derive comfort from reliving the pieces they had played together in happier days.
She was startled when, as she concluded Mozart's Turkish Rondo, she heard the sound of applause coming from behind her. She turned, alarmed, to see Raoul de Chagny standing in the doorway. He smiled apologetically as she rose to her feet, her heart hammering with embarrassed surprise.
"Forgive me. I did not mean to startle you." He smiled and gestured to the piano stool. "Please, sit. You play very well."
The fact that Meg was trying hard to be angry with Erik did not prevent her from feeling a slight, automatic antipathy towards his rival in accustomed sympathy with Erik's cause.
"Thank you," she said stiffly. "I don't – but thank you."
She saw a faint shadow of surprise pass over Raoul's handsome face at her ungracious receipt of his harmless compliment before his good manners replaced it with a smile, which faded as he leaned forward.
"Mademoiselle Giry, you must forgive me this intrusion; I would not willingly interrupt your free time, and I will try to make myself as briefly intelligible as possible."
Meg inclined her head, and said nothing.
"You may have heard that Christine Daaé and I are … engaged to be married."
Again, Meg nodded.
"But as you know, all this business with the Phantom has rather upset our plans. You – and your mother, of course –" he added with hasty courtesy "– are his messengers. You must know what we can do to protect her."
"She doesn't need protection," Meg interrupted, feeling indignation begin to spread through her at the Vicomte's well-meaning slander. "He has never hurt her."
"You cannot possibly believe that he never will. He has tried to kill members of the cast before now; he looks upon her as his own. Meg," he reached out to her, seeing her temper mounting, "you must believe me when I say I only want to protect her. I am so afraid for her."
"He loves her too!" Meg shut her eyes and turned her face away. "Just as you do. Why should he be denied the chance to fight for her too?"
She shook her head fiercely. "Enough! I have said too much."
It was not until much later that Meg realised she had, however unwittingly, handed Raoul the one secret that would allow him to pierce Erik's otherwise impenetrable armour.
It was armed with that knowledge that Raoul followed Christine to Perros-Guirec, and although Meg did not learn until many years later what had transpired there, she saw the difference in Erik as soon as he returned. He was so cold: when he spoke of Christine there was ice in his voice, and his demands of perfection in the company's execution of his opera became irrational.
Even Antoinette could not induce him to be reasonable, and Meg began to look forward to the opening night of Don Juan Triumphant with unmixed dread.