Mme. Giry and Meg arrived home somewhat later than they expected, having dawdled over whether to chance some very late asparagus (they decided on aubergine). They had been to see their new quarters. Mme. Giry was more than pleased with hers—it had a small sitting room, so that Meg would have a place to escape to when the dormitories got too close It would be much like the Opéra, but finer, with better pay, and much further to go.
"You listen to me, pet. You have enough talent for three girls your age, and more beauty besides. You work hard and keep away from the boys, and you might make something of yourself."
Meg grinned at her.
"Must I keep entirely away from the boys?"
Mme. Giry laughed.
"I didn't say that you have to keep away from their pocketbooks!"
Yet it was very strange, when they reached the threshold, that the front door was standing open. She put Meg behind her on the stairs, a sense of wrongness spreading. In the sitting room, poor Aimée was staring up at a gendarme, tears streaming down her face.
"Aimée!" The girl ran to her. Mme. Giry put her arm around her and turned to the tall policeman, but then she noticed the other man in the room.
"Vicomte?" Oh God. Where was Erik?
"You are Mme. Giry?" the gendarme asked, walking toward her. Mme. Giry tucked Aimée behind her with Meg, even though the young man seemed merely grave. The Vicomte, however, was extremely agitated.
"I am. What is going on here?" They could not have found him, or they would be gone already, and she would read about his execution in the newspapers.
"Madame, the Vicomte de Chagny says that he came looking for his fiancée, but that he found instead a fugitive."
"What?" She could think of no other response that would buy her time to think. The Vicomte started forward, but the gendarme stopped him with a raised hand.
"Please, Madame. You did not know that the Phantom of the Opéra was in your house?"
Meg made the most extraordinary sound—it was part shout, part choke, and then Aimée cried out.
"Mlle. Meg!"
Mme. Giry turned and Meg was on the floor in a dead faint, with Aimée patting her hand. Meg had never fainted in her life. The young policeman was at her side in an instant.
"Aimée, go fetch my smelling salts. Monsieur, if you please—set her in this chair."
He was everything proper and gentle as he lifted Meg into the armchair; then he stepped back while Mme. Giry waved the smelling salts under her nose. Meg shook her head and grimaced, then looked up with wide eyes.
"Maman, he can't really have been here?"
Drat the child. She should have been an actress. Mme. Giry patted her hand.
"How could he have found us?" Might as well keep up the charade. "Monsieur, at the Opéra, he left notes for his victims. Did you find one here?"
"No," the young man said, then set about searching for one. The Vicomte came over, looking mussed and ill.
"Is she here? Please tell me she's here."
"Monsieur, I'm very sorry. She is not." The poor boy looked utterly heartbroken. The gendarme cleared his throat.
"I see no notes, Madame, but I have noticed that you are packed for a journey."
"Only a short one, Monsieur. My daughter and I will soon be working at the Comédie Française. We will move into our lodgings there in just two days."
The policeman nodded gravely and wrote this into his little notebook.
"And the Vicomte's fiancée—" he flipped back several pages—"Mlle. Christine Daae. She is not here?"
"No."
He eyes were unnervingly sharp.
"But she has been here recently?"
"Yes, Monsieur—how did you know?"
"Someone has been sleeping in the third bedroom, and you have this arrangement of chairs around the fire."
They would have the one intelligent policeman in all of Paris.
"She left us very recently," Mme. Giry said, and the Vicomte gripped her arms hard.
"Where did she go? You must tell me!"
"Monsieur!" the gendarme barked. "Kindly restrain yourself."
He asked them many more questions, all with the same answers—yes, Christine had gone. No, they did not know where. They had no idea the Phantom was in their house; it was all a great fright. The Vicomte was strangely quiet throughout the proceedings, much different from his swashbuckling of the past. Meg continued to look wan and tearful, until at last the gendarme declared himself satisfied.
"Monsieur, it's clear to me that these women were nearly victims of this criminal. Mesdames, I am very glad that you will soon be moving to safer lodgings. As regards Mlle. Daae, I'm sorry, sir, but it is not the business of the police if a girl changes her mind."
He bowed and left, and the women risked a glance at one another before turning to the Vicomte. He stood with shoulders bowed, looking a decade older than his years.
"I can't believe she left," he said, and it wasn't certain whether he was even talking to them. Mme. Giry's heart ached to look at him.
"Monsieur, please sit down. This must have been awful for you."
"No." He shook his head. "No. You don't think he found her? You don't think he—took her?"
"Oh no," Meg said, sitting up a little. "She left here of her own free will. She said she wanted to start a new life."
"Where?" he asked in the voice of a lost child. "Please tell me where."
Mme. Giry felt that she should be warning young men instead, to see that sad, liquid gaze in her daughter's eyes and know it was all an act.
"She wouldn't say for sure," Meg said. "But she mentioned St. Petersburg. And America."
The poor boy sagged even more, and Mme. Giry hurt for him. But if the stories Christine had told of the parents were true, they would keep him busy, and he would rally soon enough. He would recover.
"I don't understand," he said. He looked at them all, his face the very picture of sorrow. "Please. If she writes to you, please tell her that I love her. Please tell her to come back."
He walked as if each step would undo him, slowly and sadly all the way down the stairs. Poor man. Mme. Giry shook her head. He had always been running in without thinking, and he had only gotten himself a broken heart for his trouble. Still, she was glad that the parents had stepped in. Whether it was fondness or schoolgirl romanticism, Mme. Giry would rather Erik had another chance.
A giggle erupted behind her, and she turned. Aimée had thrown her apron over hear head at some point during the questioning and sat under it shaking. Mme. Giry had assumed this was fright and tears, but it was apparently laughter. She hadn't known the girl was capable of it. Meg was quickly joining in.
"Meg Giry, you will be the death of me!"
"But Maman, it worked, didn't it? I've never tried fainting before. I had no idea it was so effective!"
Mme. Giry could only groan, and the two girls giggled shamelessly.
"You should not laugh so at the poor Vicomte. He's obviously shattered."
Meg's face sobered instantly.
"I know, Maman. But if Christine wanted him to know where she was, she'd have told him. Anyway, it was mostly to protect—" Mme. Giry gasped along with her—"Erik!"
Aimée got to her feet and handed them each a small something.
"M. Erik left these for you. I let him out on the roof the first time that gentleman came, before he brought the gendarme. His trunk's in your room, Madame. I think he's safe."
Mme. Giry hugged her.
"Oh, you good girl!"
Once she had sent Aimée to start supper, Mme. Giry examined the packet of money and very nearly swore. Had he been there, she would have made him take fully half of it back—at least. At this rate, she might be able to retire some day. The wretch.
During supper, Aimée brought a note from Erik—he was safe and bound for Calais, would she please send his trunk? Her relief was so great that she declared him extremely troublesome, with which Meg and Aimée both agreed. That the three of them were grinning like fools made no difference at all.