A/N – More changes to the plot here, I'm afraid. In my opinion, Point of No Return doesn't work if Christine realises Erik has taken Piangi's place – and if she doesn't recognise his voice after everything they've been through then she's clearly severely mentally retarded. Hence, in my Don Juan, this scene remains the climax of the opera, but the glory is all Christine's: the song is a solo for her, and Don Juan remains silent throughout the scene. Until … ah, but you'll see. :D
The moon – just for the record – is another form for the Roman huntress goddess Diana, who is a symbol of chastity and purity.
For le chat noir, for being my very first squeer. :D
Meg's refusal to perform in Don Juan lasted about three days before she finally caved in to her mother's not unkind but nonetheless relentless pressure. She felt that she would never derive joy from dancing again; and so what did it matter what role she took? Perhaps she would catch the eye of a rich nobleman in the audience, and he would take her away and marry her. Meg took pleasure that felt more like pain from this thought: she would marry somebody else, and never give Erik another thought.
Except that, of course, any rich noblemen in the audience would almost inevitably fall in love with Christine, she thought bitterly. It appeared to be becoming a fashion.
The next day heralded the first rehearsal of the new opera. In specific terms, it was perhaps an exaggeration to call it a rehearsal: the meeting consisted largely of explaining the plot to bewildered chorus members.
Even that was not sufficient for some. Erik would have been vastly amused by the scene that ensued in the ballet corps' dormitory after the meeting, little Rachel having complained that she still did not understand the story.
Robyn and Katrina had taken it upon themselves to explain, but the other girls continued to chime in helpfully with additional details until the storytelling became a corps-wide effort.
"It's all about Aminta."
"Our Christine!"
"And a man called Don Juan."
"Signor Piangi."
"They're foreigners; that's why they have such funny names."
"And he falls in love with her!"
"But she's in love with another man –"
"Thomas –"
"The second tenor –"
"The handsome one!"
Giggling from Nicole and Anna, supplemented by elbows to Robyn's ribs as she blushed happily.
"Who's completely worthless and won't marry her because his family say he's got to marry someone else …"
"But she doesn't know that."
"And she's torn between them. So finally –"
"Don Juan loses his temper and sends her away …"
"And she comes back to him!"
"And she sings this aria …" Here, various fingers fumbled for the correct page in the script, Anna finally returning triumphant and pressing the sheet into Rachel's hands.
"… accepting her love for him …"
"But he's completely silent …"
"That's symbolic," concluded Anna with ponderous importance.
Vigorous nodding, accompanied by wise looks from the older girls.
"And then he sings to her …" Another sheet of music passed into Rachel's hands.
"And the worthless young man gets his comeuppance …"
"And everybody lives happily ever after."
Somewhat exhausted by their collective recitation of the story of Don Juan Triumphant, the ballet rats sat back on Celia's bed and sighed.
Meg, sitting very still on her own bed, pretending to be immersed in a dog-eared copy of du Maurier's Trilby, felt bitterness curl like smoke inside her. Her character, the prostitute Carolina, was not even considered important enough to be included in the story's synopsis when compiled by her closest friends. In fact, Carolina was a central part of the story: hoping to win Don Juan herself, it was only through her aid that Don Juan was able to gain access to Aminta. The parallels to her own relationship with Erik were laughably plain; and were it not for the fact that she knew Don Juan Triumphant had been completed many months before the masquerade ball, she would have suspected Erik of drawing inspiration from life.
Rachel was still looking faintly confused.
"I don't quite understand …" she began.
"It doesn't matter, dear," said Lisa in a very worldly-wise tone. "Everybody knows that in opera the plot doesn't matter."
And all the ballet rats nodded vigorous agreement.
As rehearsals went on, Meg came to love the opera with love that felt like the deepest kind of ache in her chest. The music was all fire and light, passion and pain; and to see Christine stumble her way through Aminta's part was acutely frustrating to Meg as it must have been to Erik, silently watching every rehearsal.
Meg could hear how carefully he had crafted the opera for her – every note of music minutely tailored to her voice, her costumes more beautiful than anything in her everyday wardrobe – and she could only imagine his pain at being unable to help her overcome the stumbling blocks of her shy inexperience to rise like a phoenix from the ashes as the blazing diva of his imagination.
Aminta was a mirror image of Christine painted in slightly brighter colours. Although pure and tender, she had such spirit; such fire in her soul; and Christine could never quite shed the confused naiveté that served as a barrier between herself and the image Erik had drawn for her. If Christine was the white of a bridal veil, pale pink and soft yellow, Aminta was the flaming red brilliance of a sunset, the deep blue of an ocean miles out from the shore, the shining silver of a moon so close it made your eyes sting with tears.
Outside rehearsal, Christine was never seen without Raoul's arm protectively around her waist. Both looked tense and drawn; and in spite of his constant, kind devotion to Christine, the dark circles beneath his eyes spoke the toll his love was taking on him.
Meg wondered more than once how two so different men could both be willing to go through hell for the chance of a smile from the pale, thin little girl who now sat huddled on her bed with a blanket around her shoulders, clutching her rag doll to her heart like a talisman.
That Christine was suffering too, Meg did not doubt for a moment. She seemed to grow thinner by the day, and Meg overheard her mother speaking in low, anxious tones to Raoul, saying, "She's not eating enough to keep body and soul together"; and Raoul's response, dejected and weary, "I can't force her to eat, Antoinette". The laughing innocence that had always made Christine such a delightful companion once one had broken through her reserve was never to be seen in her now, and Meg knew that she was suffering with that most prevalent of states with her: indecision.
That Christine was fond of Raoul, there could be no doubt. That she loved him as he loved her, Meg privately felt, was very much less certain. And although Christine transparently feared Erik's temper, his jealousy – and perhaps even the sheer passion that he brought to everything he touched – Meg could see reflected in her eyes just the palest shade of the fire in Erik's own.
She was not yet the sunset; the ocean; the moon; but perhaps, in spite of the trouble she was experiencing capturing the full spectrum of Aminta's colours, she was beginning to absorb a little of her glow.
The afternoon of the first performance of Don Juan Triumphant, all of the ballet corps were sent to their dormitories to rest before the performance. After a little token excited gossip – the thrill of performing an opera written by the infamous Opera Ghost had still not quite worn off – the girls all settled down to sleep, having learned from long experience the punishments they could expect if caught out of bed by Madame Giry.
Meg lay very still, but sleep would not come to her. She felt sick with nerves: the very melodramatic streak of Erik's that gave him the ability to write music that could strike at a listener's heart like a physical blow or the whisper of an angel would not permit him to allow the managers' insolence to go unpunished; and she did not dare to think of what form that vengeance might take. In his current state of – well, she would say it – instability, he was not likely to be mindful of his own safety.
Quietly, careful not to disturb the other girls, she rose from the bed and padded out into the corridor. She walked down the flight of stairs at the foot of the corridor, and made her way to Christine's dressing room.
She tapped lightly on the door.
"Yes?"
She pushed the door open. Christine was sitting at her dressing table, staring into the mirror reflecting her pale face.
"Oh, Meg!"
To Meg's considerable surprise, Christine leapt up and wrapped her arms around her. "I'm so glad it's you." Meg felt Christine's tears soak into her hair, and she kissed her with a sudden rush of tenderness. Her friend looked so young, and Meg suddenly wanted fiercely to protect her.
Gently, she guided her to the couch, and sat down beside her. She smoothed Christine's dark hair back, and took her hand.
"Are you afraid?"
Christine nodded silently. Then the words rushed forth in a flood:
"I don't know what to do. I'm not good enough – I know I'm not good enough – I need more time. If I let him down …" She shook her head hopelessly, and tears began to seep from her eyes again. "He'll never forgive me. And he's so angry with me in any case …" She clasped Meg's hands. "If anything happens tonight, Meg, I'll never forgive myself. If someone gets hurt …"
Meg had read enough novels to know that she ought to reassure her friend in the strongest possible terms that nobody would get hurt. But Christine's fears were so closely allied to her own that she could not find the words: if Erik lost his temper, the chances were that somebody would get hurt – and the chances were that it would be Raoul.
Christine was looking at her. With her tangled mass of hair and eyelashes still wet with tears, she looked ridiculously like a child.
"You think it too," she whispered. "Meg, tell me how I can stop this. You know him better than anyone –" at Meg's start, she grasped her hands and would not let her go "– oh, yes, I know we don't talk about that – I don't know why, but I know we don't – but you must help me. I don't want anyone else to get hurt. It's all my fault; I know that; but I don't know how I can set it right."
With this, she released Meg's hands. Her next words, spoken through the curtain of her hair to her hands, were almost inaudible.
"I don't want to hurt either of them."
"Christine." Meg pushed back Christine's hair, heavy and tangled, behind her ears, and tilted her friend's face up towards her. "Are you telling me –"
Both girls leapt to their feet as the door opened abruptly; Meg felt Christine seize her hands with a terrified instinct that showed just how tightly her nerves were stretched.
"Time moves on, girls."
Meg felt Christine sag against her, tears of silent relief pouring down her face, as Antoinette Giry stepped into the room. She examined Christine, weeping silently against her daughter's shoulder, dispassionately.
"Monsieur Reyer would like to speak with you, Christine." She glanced at her daughter. "And you, Meg – I believe I told the corps to rest before the performance." She ignored her daughter's protest, and gestured towards the door. "Go and practise your piano if you are not inclined to sleep." She stepped towards Christine, whom Meg released, and guided her to her chair with gentle firmness.
"You cannot be expecting Cecile to dress your hair in that state." She picked up a hairbrush from the dressing table, and began to brush Christine's hair with firm, confident strokes. She did not look at her daughter, and Meg recognised the tacit order to leave.
She wandered aimlessly down the corridor. She did not want to go back to the dormitories and endure the aimless chatter of the other girls.
She drew back into the shadows, flattening herself against a pillar, as she heard voices approaching. Raoul, accompanied by a man wearing an official uniform whom Meg did not recognise, with Andre following anxiously behind, was walking briskly down the corridor, speaking in a low voice that sounded tired.
"How many of your men will be positioned around the theatre?"
"One at every exit … one in every box …" Meg heard Andre make a quick protest, but Raoul held up his hand and he refrained, "… and one in the pit to allow for quick access to the stage. Any more and you run the risk of alerting him to our movements."
Raoul nodded sharply. "Very well." He sighed, and Meg could hear weariness in his voice. "Then, God willing, we will all be free of this."
They passed on, and Meg sat down behind the pillar, tucking herself into the small space between the wall and the column itself. The stone floor was cold against her legs.
So that was how it would end. With Erik shot like a dog if he dared to show his face – so to speak – at the first performance of his own opera. Meg stood up slowly, mechanically brushing cobwebs off the skirt of her dress. She walked slowly back to the now-empty dormitories, all the other girls having gone to dress, where she stood over her washbasin and stared at the pale face she barely recognised as her own in the mirror.
Her stomach convulsed, and Meg was violently sick into the washbasin.
The first two acts passed in a haze for Meg. She still felt sick to her stomach with nerves, and had barely been able to remember her steps as she spent her every spare moment looking surreptitiously around the theatre in search of Erik. She had not seen him: but she had seen the armed policemen who stood stiffly at every door.
The climax of the opera was approaching, when Aminta finally confesses her love for her mysterious suitor; and Meg was beginning to be able to breathe again. There had been no accidents; no disembodied voices threatening retribution; Meg could almost believe that Erik so wanted his opera to be a success that he would allow the managers' disobedience to his requests to pass without comment.
Perhaps, she thought, her spirits buoyed by the idea, he even found the idea of all their plans going to waste amusing, and did not intend to satisfy their desire for action that night. He was never a man to be pushed into satisfying the whims of others.
Meg felt Robyn squeeze her hand as Christine sat down on the bench in preparation for her finest aria, and she managed a smile in response.
Don Juan, draped in reams of black silk, stepped out from behind the curtain, closing it efficiently behind him.
Meg stiffened.
Surely there was something familiar about the peculiarly graceful way this ethereal shade moved across the stage, stalking Christine's footsteps?
And … the movement of long white hands, the only part of his body left unhidden by the sweeping black robe … surely there was something familiar about them too.
They were certainly not the rather chubby, short-fingered hands of Ubaldo Piangi.
Meg froze as Don Juan approached Christine and lifted her hand to the false mouth created by his cowl.
Christine, of course, suffering terribly with her customary first-night nerves, made inestimably worse by the unique nature of this particular first night, was blindly following the stage directions and had noticed nothing. Meg remained utterly still, terrified lest someone should notice her reaction to the cloaked figure, paralysed with fear.
The pit, the pit. So many marksmen …
She bowed her head in silent prayer; and then found that she could not take her eyes from Erik's hands. Utterly masterful, he exuded charisma and authority; and yet he brought a tenderness to the role that could not have been born but of genuine feeling.
His hands were gentle, tender, inexpressibly sensual as they smoothed Christine's hair, trailed down her arms, lifted her hands in his own … had Meg ever entertained any doubt as to the depth of Erik's feelings for Christine, it would not have survived the sight of his elegant fingers stroking her hair. Safe in the anonymity of his obscuring black cloak, he was finally free to touch her as he had always wanted.
His actions were tender rather than seductive; the hesitant caresses of a man violently in love rather than Don Juan's lustful intrusions.
The scene, which with Piangi in the lead role had always seemed awkward and clumsy – for who could invite poor Piangi's inept caresses in such a way? – was suddenly alive with tenderness, and Meg realised that it was for this purpose that the scene was intended: it was not, as she had thought, a predatory depiction of a master seduction; but a love scene.
It was strange how the scene could be so altered by a silent presence: Don Juan did not speak in this scene – the glory was all Aminta's in her beautiful aria – and yet even in silence Erik's charismatic presence spread out to command the stage as Piangi's never had.
Meg could only wonder at his audacity, to come unarmed into public view – and when was the last time Erik had willingly come into the presence of anyone unfamiliar, for any reason! – into a theatre he knew to be bristling with armed marksmen.
Backstage on opening night was always such a hub of lost ballet slippers and badly-placed props that few had time to stand and watch the performances from the wings. Meg was silently grateful; Reyer was too busy watching Christine to worry about her silent partner, and the managers in their box were doubtless congratulating themselves on the fullness of the audience, and would probably not have noticed any change in their leading man's performance even had they been concentrating on the drama unfolding onstage.
But Carlotta …
Still sulking that the managers had yielded to Erik's demand that Christine should play Aminta, she had discharged her role with the minimum of effort and her best expression of contempt and spent the rest of the performance standing silently in the wings watching her Piangi with a sort of fond, fierce pride.
It was there that she was still standing, and Meg saw a frown slowly cast a cloud over her face. Of course, of all the cast, only she would care enough to focus on Piangi in Christine's moment of glory … and Meg felt her heart freeze with terror as a terrible expression of doubting recognition crept over her face.
Desperate, she rushed over to her.
"Isn't Monsieur Piangi wonderful tonight?" she asked hastily.
Carlotta turned sharply to look at her. There was a long pause.
"Si," she said at last. Her face slowly relaxed into a smile. "He is always so."
Meg smiled subserviently and retreated, her heart hammering with relief, satisfied that Carlotta's affectionate pride, once stimulated, would carry her through to the end of the performance.
What Erik had planned for then, she dreaded to imagine.
Meg did not have long to worry. As the climax of the aria approached, Christine approached her now seated suitor from behind and wrapped her arms around his neck. Her face came to rest on the cowl; she let out a clearly audible gasp and pulled away; and Meg realised that she must have felt the hardness of Erik's mask through the material.
Erik turned sharply to face Christine, now standing paralysed behind him. He stood slowly, and reached out to take her hand. As if in a trance, she allowed him to, oblivious to the sudden frissons of excitement and anxiety that were rustling round the theatre as the managers and Raoul evidently realised something was wrong.
Meg felt her fellow dancers begin to cluster around her, rustling with excitement; she heard someone whisper "The Phantom …" and a chorus of stifled exclamations and Hail Marys; through the sudden, subdued rush of noise, she barely heard Erik's whispered words to Christine:
"Don't go."
Christine shook her head, her eyes wide.
Meg could tell from the tension suddenly apparent in Erik's posture that he was more than aware of the marksmen slowly filling the auditorium.
"So this is how it is to be?" he asked, very softly.
Christine glanced around, an instinctive nervous reaction, and Erik made an irritated gesture with one hand.
"You thought, perhaps, that I was unaware?" Menace was slowly bleeding into his voice.
Christine shook her head fearfully.
"You would have let them shoot me in the back."
"No."
"Put me on display."
"No!"
"No?" Erik was almost shouting now, his precarious grip on his temper trembling. Meg saw Raoul rush through the wings on the other side of the stage, knocking two stage-hands out of his way, and it was with inexpressible relief that she saw her mother catch hold of his arm before he could rush blindly onto the stage. Raoul tried to push her away; but Madame Giry gripped his arm and hissed something into his ear that stilled his rush.
The audience was holding its collective breath. Searing as the opera had been that evening, even the Paris elite could tell that the drama unfolding onstage before them was not the one contained in the conductor's score.
Erik was shaking his head slowly. "I trusted you." He lowered his head briefly, and Meg realised that he was striving to contain himself. When he spoke again, his voice was acidic with venom. "What happens now, then, my dear?" A sweeping gesture from his hand took in the whole auditorium. "The moment I move far enough away from you to ensure a clear line of fire, I will doubtless be treated to a bullet in the back. Is that how you want this to end?"
As if to demonstrate, he took a step away from her, spreading his arms, and Meg almost passed out as she heard the unmistakable clicking of pistols being cocked. "Is this what you want?"
"No!" Christine reached out desperately towards him, and Meg heard Raoul bark a short order to the marksmen to hold their fire. He, at least, would not risk Christine's safety to secure a dead ghost. Meg was silently grateful: she was not sure that the managers would have taken such pains to ensure her safety.
"This is what you have asked for!" Erik snatched his hand away from hers. "Why can you not, for once in your life, have the strength of will to carry something through?"
Meg gave a low moan, paralysed with fear, and felt Robyn clasp her arm.
"Meg, what's the matter?"
Meg could not speak, could not move. Her lips formed his name, terror blinding her, and it was only Robyn's hand on her arm that kept her from throwing herself onto the stage to protect him. Through her haze of terror, she barely heard Christine's next words.
"I'm sorry."
She reached for him, and Meg's fear mingled with anguish as she saw Erik's expression soften as her hand touched his unmasked cheek. He stepped towards her in a rush, his anger melting, as it always would if she spoke to him gently or touched him without fear, into hope visible even through the mask.
Meg heard Raoul's curse even across the stage, broken halfway through as Christine's hand moved across Erik's face and ripped away his mask.
Screams rang out from around the auditorium, and Meg caught at Robyn, suddenly feeling faint.
She heard herself whisper, "Oh my God …" and heard Robyn gasp and whisper a Hail Mary, supporting Meg as best she could.
She had never dreamed … never anything so utterly and unimaginably hideous.
Erik's reaction was unthinkably swift: after the momentary anguish of such an absolute betrayal, he snarled and somehow – Meg, caught in horror, was too slow to see – they disappeared to mounting confusion and panic.
Meg swayed and sank to the floor, Robyn suddenly gone, and closed her eyes.
"Meg!" She opened her eyes to see Raoul at her side, grasping her arm. "You know the way to his house."
Meg shook her head, but he took a firm hold of her by both arms and gave her a shake.
"Don't lie to me!" Making an obvious effort to calm himself, he lowered his voice. "You must take me there. Meg, he could hurt her … if anything happens to her, I'll never forgive myself."
Beseeching brown eyes looked into Meg's, and her hesitation gave way.
She nodded.
From the wings, Antoinette watched as her daughter and the Vicomte disappeared together from the panic-stricken crowd, and crossed herself.