The Angel of Music

by aeipathy.

Notes: I want to thank everyone again for their patience and for their wonderful support and reviews. I'm sorry I haven't been putting up chapters as frequently as I used to, but I'm going to try to improve that in the near future. Additionally, though I forgot to say so last time, thank you to Pleading Eyes and Dimac99 for pointing out things that might have been construed as mistakes – for all I know, they could have been – although I wasn't really thinking of specific ages in mind, and I did have a plan for why Giry is named Giry even prior to her marriage. It flatters me so much that readers are so attentive!

Part Six

Giry was beginning to grow accustomed to the cane, but not to the life to which she was resigned following her accident. After losing her art, her dancing, it seemed that everything else paled in its appeal. She became more careless about her appearance, and would leave her hair tied in a long tail down her back rather than pin it up or arrange it with ornaments and clips, as did the other dancers – she lost all feelings of obligations to those girls, those flighty creatures with their gossip and giggling. She no longer tried even occasionally to hold up empty conversations of endless chatter with them, and although technically her period of recovery had ended, she no longer made an appearance at their rehearsals only to sit by the sidelines and watch what she could no longer do.

The time that she had previously spent on the stage, in the dressing rooms, in the mirrored dance halls, she now spent below the surface of the earth, shrouded in darkness by Erik's side. She had no reason to stay above the ground in the daytime – the light of the sun, streaming through the windows, had begun to feel cold to her.

She would sit quietly on Erik's three-legged divan (a stack of books held up the unsupported corner) and watch him at his desks. Silences were comfortable between the two of them, as neither felt an obligation to talk when there was no need to do so. With her hands folded on the head of the cane beside her legs, she would watch him at his sketches and designs, or she would listen as he played beautiful symphonies, his talents growing daily, on the ancient violin. At times, if she asked, he would read to her, passages from books she had once owned but which she had presented to him in the past, and which he now presented, in his mournful, resonant voice, back to her.

He was surprisingly sympathetic to her pain, though he said nothing of it. Instead he showed his sympathy wordlessly, by creating special pathways out of the rock and stairs for her to walk, pathways that would not be so awkward or perilous. He would offer her his hand when she seemed to lose her balance, when she winced from leaning too hard on her destroyed ankle.

Giry, in turn, never spoke of the day upon which she had fallen, though her mind had been turning over the events following her accident continuously. Like the time she had spotted Erik creeping through the ropes and corridors in the rafters of the Opera, she found herself unable to stop thinking about it.

She had fallen, and had drifted in and out of consciousness – in such a state, nothing had been clear, and now, in memory, it remained obscured. However, she knew that somehow, when Erik had come upon her in a fainted heap, he had lifted her and carried her through the catacombs and back into the light – she remembered a glimpse of his face while lying on the sofa in the Opera dressing room, shortly before he had disappeared and she had been found by the dancers and seamstresses. But he had been there nonetheless; he did not know where she kept the keys to the locked doors leading to the surface, but somehow, without those keys, he had succeeded in bringing her into the light, into the rooms behind the Opera Populaire.

For the first time, she was more fragile than he was: she was at his mercy, and somehow, that comforted her. It was only now that her life had come tumbling down upon her – now that she had to rely on someone else, on a piece of wood, to walk – that she found him strong. It was only now, when she looked upon his darkened face, upon the sad curve of his lips, the hollow brightness of his eyes, that she felt herself weak by comparison. The increase in her time spent with him was not simply for reassurance, for company; it was because, in his shadow, she felt his strength and it filled her with the will to breathe, to carry on.

"Please," begged Celeste, her fingers tightly gripping Giry's free hand. "All the girls are so worried about you. Even Madame – oh, please, just come for a little while. The rehearsal is almost over as it is – you wouldn't have to be there for very long."

In the shadows of the corridor behind the stage, a pale, distant light was thrown upon her small face, and the layers of tulle which gave volume to her skirt glowed whiter than they truly were. She looked like an angel, but though her voice was sweet and sympathetic, her large brown eyes, to which Giry looked suddenly, were full of pity. They scanned Giry's face with the slow, gentle precision of a doctor inspecting a wound, of a mother looking over her child, and it made her feel as though her stomach were being twisted into a knot.

"Celeste," she began quietly, uncertainly. It was always so difficult to make excuses for herself.

"Nothing you can say will dissuade me." Celeste loosened her grip, but took Giry's hand and stroked the back of it with her fingers. "Even my brother is here today, and you know how rare that is. He has come to see you, you know. He was always so impressed by you, when he came to see the shows."

Giry remembered Celeste's brother – it was difficult not to remember Briand Mortier, a young man whose eyes had always remained riveted upon her despite the fact that his younger sister was always dancing not so far from her side – but she couldn't keep the bitterness out of her voice. "And what are his reasons for coming now? He will not see me dance."

Celeste's eyes changed, though the pity remained. "Please," she said again. "He so wants to see you."

Though the music on the other side of the curtains – the dancing mistress would not be pleased by Celeste missing so much of the rehearsal, Giry knew – there was suddenly another person behind her, a presence bearing down against her back. Celeste's expression brightened, and Giry turned slightly to see a young man in the shadows, half illuminated; she recognized him immediately, having seen him at a number of performances and, as well, having danced with him at a number of Opera balls.

"Monsieur Mortier," she said, bowing her head. Though the sight of him pleased her, as always, she could not put any more life, or manners, into her greeting.

Briand's eyes, as always, seemed unable to move from her face, and he smiled slightly. He always seemed somehow higher than his station, as though he had been snatched from a noble cradle at birth and given to a family whose daughter was, of all things, a dancer. His hair was paler than hers, and straighter, always neatly tied back, and his clothes were always pressed; his hands were always clean. When he took her hand in his and bent to kiss it, she saw his fingernails gleam. But his cleanliness was not foppish, or vain; it was somehow sad, as though he knew he did not belong in his family and mourned it – as though he did all he could to achieve on his own what his birth had not allowed him.

"Mademoiselle Giry," he responded, and his smile was kind. "How are you feeling?"

"Fine, thank you."

Before she could say more, Celeste pressed her hand a final time, gave her brother an affectionate kiss on the cheek, and disappeared again through the curtains. Giry lowered her hand back to her cane, able to hear the dancing mistress scolding Celeste even from a distance. In Celeste's absence, Giry felt awkward; she swept her hand over her long skirt, ashamed of her injury even though Briand could not see it, even though he already knew. As she looked into his face she felt something in her chest sink, something overcome with sorrow. There was something in the way he looked at her, the way he was so quiet and courteous, that made her wilt – he was so inherently good, so mindful of every move she made, so awed by her. She felt unworthy of his goodness. "What brings you here today, monsieur? Have you come to watch the recital?"

"I have," he began, "but I admit that I had another more sinister motivation as well. I intended to ask you if you would be our guest for supper on Thursday evening – if you were to indulge us, my sister and I would be most pleased to have your company."

"Supper?" she repeated, finally lifting her eyes, and the word fell from her lips like a foreign term.

Briand nodded, and he seemed to have become shy: his fingers began to fidget at his waist. "We would be most pleased," he said again, more softly, and smiled. "I… I would be pleased."

As she sat on the divan and watched as Erik tuned his violin (it flew out of tune at the lightest knock against a hard surface), it seemed there was a notably tense atmosphere in the air. He was able to ignore it at first, but she seemed overtaken by it, her eyes on her cane, her fingers, as always, drumming against the fabric of her skirts over her legs.

At last her silent, frustrated anxiety increased to the point where Erik could no longer ignore it – to the point where he nearly snapped one of the violin's strings. He put it down, turning to her, and his brow was furrowed. "You are not feeling well today," he said, his voice inferring, guessing.

She looked up, surprised by his voice. She gave his assumption a bit of consideration, but shook her head. "No. I feel fine. There is hardly any pain anymore."

"Then?" he simply said, almost irritated by the strangeness of her demeanor.

Giry realized that she would need to utilize her inherent honesty – she could not bring herself to keep secrets from him. Additionally, the fact that she had suddenly grown so much weaker – that he had grown so much stronger – led her sometimes to comply to his requests and demands unusually quickly. It was not that she feared him; only that she did not feel herself able to defy him. Meeting his eyes, she said, "I feel I might have something to confess to you."

Erik nodded his head, once, and waited. She thought she saw fear in his eyes, fear inspired by the seriousness of her tone, and it amused her; his strength faltered so easily.

"I have not spoken to you of Briand Mortier – he is Celeste's brother." She had spoken to him many times of the other girls in the ballet, and by this time he more or less knew them by name. "When he has time, Briand attends all the shows that the Opera puts on… and occasionally he attends rehearsals as well. He has taken very much of a liking to me."

"Has he?" Erik seemed to force himself to sound nonchalant, but his low voice was tinged with jealousy, that someone else would want to occupy Giry's time.

"He has." Giry felt suddenly hesitant about continuing; she felt certain that it was a mistake, though she knew that there was no possible way to avoid telling Erik the truth. There was something terrible about the situation, and the impending silence fell heavily upon her shoulders like a shawl made of iron links. "He invited me to his home for supper last night. He…" The words tasted strange on her tongue, but not necessarily unpleasant. "He told me that he wants me to marry him."

She did not look up. However, she may as well have; she could hear Erik's reaction perfectly and it surfaced in her mind as clearly as if it were one of his sketches, as precise as one of his paintings, more honest than life itself. He was still a moment, and then he reached for the case of his violin, putting the instrument inside and shutting the lid, almost too quickly – it made a snapping sound like a sheet hung out to dry in the wind. As though startled by the sound he drew his hands back immediately and let them rest in his lap, but they were tense, his fingers curled.

"And what did you say?" he asked finally, and to her surprise, his voice was not angry; it was heavy with something akin to resignment, to surrender.

Giry couldn't lift her eyes. "I told him I would."

"Do you love him?"

"I don't know."

"Do you want to marry him?"

The question seemed overly obvious, for she had already told him that she had accepted the proposal; but Erik was far more intelligent than that. She felt her cheeks burn slightly, not with shame, but with the feeling that somehow he had been able to look into her mind even without being able to look into her eyes.

Again unable to answer the question, she said instead, "I made up my mind as a child never to marry."

"Why?" He sounded bewildered by everything she was telling him, but riveted.

"I don't know. It seemed like a waste of time."

"Then why do you change your mind now?"

Giry opened her mouth to speak, but only a small sound escaped, the beginning of a sentence that she killed in the middle of its flight by closing her lips again. She had no proper answer to his questions, and she knew that lies would do no good – the truth was all that he would accept, and all that she would allow herself to offer him. "There is nothing else I can do with my life. All girls are intended to grow up and marry; I thought as a child that – I thought I would never have to marry, that I would be able to live only for my dancing, for the performance... but that is no longer the case." Her ankle stung suddenly.

Erik said nothing, but she could almost hear him tightening his lips, as well.

She felt frustrated with him, with his silence. "What else can I do? The Opera has been very kind to allow me to stay this long – they know as well as I do that my usefulness to them has ended. They humor me; they say that when my ankle is better I can return to dancing. But they know it will never be better." She felt an urge to throw her cane away from her suddenly, but instead she only gripped it more tightly. "Briand is very sympathetic to me. He understands my grief at having no further use to the world. He intends to take care of me now that I have lost my worth."

Still, Erik did not speak, and she found that she had run out of words. She looked up finally, slowly lifting her eyes from the damp stone. He continued to sit, his posture tense, a few strands of dark hair having fallen over the smooth plane of the mask. His eyes were pensive, his brow furrowed, and he seemed to be struggling internally.

"What, Erik?" she said finally, at a loss. "What would you have me do?"

"Your worth..." He stopped. "You have not lost your worth."

Giry exhaled, a long, deep sigh.

"What will I do?" he asked then, devoid of any emotion in either direction, devoid of the helplessness that seemed to burn at his tongue like salt.

"I won't disappear," she told him, a tiny bit of desperation seeping into her voice; barely noticeable, but there nonetheless. "I will make sure that nothing happens to you. I'll make sure that you have what you need. And I will still see you – simply not as often as I do now."

"How often, then?" Erik turned his face away, but his eyes, visible through the holes in the mask, were suddenly full of bitterness. "I suppose you plan to marry him quite soon, so as not to inconvenience the Opera further. I have, I assume, a fortnight more of your time, before you go away? And then you will make visits to me once a week, for a short while, but they will dwindle, your visits, and soon it will be once a month. After a while you will not come at all." He lifted a hand then, and rubbed at the mask, seeming caught up in frustration of his own.

Giry felt weak, unable to fight this battle with him. She leaned back against the divan, closing her eyes wearily. "You know that isn't true."

"How do I know such a thing?" he asked harshly, with a sweeping gesture of his hand. "Once you have a husband and a home, you will no longer have any desire to spend your time in the dampness of this dungeon with me. I would not blame you." He lowered his hand, and his face seemed to follow it, his head bowing. "I blame only myself, for having thought otherwise."

She furrowed her brow, and said, questioningly, "What do you mean?" When he did not answer, she leaned forward. "Erik?"

He put his hands in his lap as though to keep them from acting without his permission. "You have no use," he repeated vaguely, perplexed. "Perhaps that is true, mademoiselle – perhaps to the world above you have no use. And nor do I." He looked at her with eyes that were wide and luminous, almost ablaze. "You have said so yourself – this is the only place for someone like me. But have you not become like me, now that you have lost all that, as you say, makes you useful, makes you appealing, to the world above the ground? Could this not be the only place for you as well?"

"You mean for me to stay here?" she asked softly. "Down here, with you?"

"I had hoped –" he began, and then cut himself off, shaking his head.

Giry realized, while looking at him, that she had become clouded by her level of familiarity with him – she had become oblivious to the fact that he was so impaired, so naïve, so utterly unaware of social convention. As she had been the only person, the only woman, ever to show kindness to him, he had somehow come to the conclusion that they could never separate again – that, although the love he felt for her was strictly platonic, familial, somehow she would end up staying with him for the rest of her days, to care for him, to protect him. The idea that she would willingly leave him was, to him, inconceivable.

Before she could rouse herself from her thoughts in order to make a reply, she heard him murmur under his breath, "I have grown so accustomed to your presence that I fear I will go mad without it."

Her left hand lingering on the cane, she covered her eyes with her right – they had begun to hurt all of a sudden. "You will not go mad."

"Oh?"

"You will forget me."

Erik looked at her with a face that seemed full of darkness. "Forget you," he repeated, his voice a hiss, dripping with disgust. "You think of me as a child, then? You think you are like a toy you can dangle in front of me for a time – a toy that, once removed, I won't miss in the least? You think I can survive without you, without anyone – utterly alone in the world?"

Giry lowered her hand. "You are only right to forget those who hurt you. I've told you so myself, though I never imagined that I would be guilty of the same sin. You must put them out of your mind, so they cannot continue to cause you pain. You don't remember your mother anymore, I'm sure – she must have been horrible to you. You have never drawn her face, not once, not even vague outlines of what she must have looked like. I think you must be right to have forgotten her. Your drawings of me will disappear and you will forget me, too – you would be right to forget me."

"No," he said, and he shook his head. He seemed feverish, bearing against his fever, but simultaneously, her mention of his mother had summoned chills. He rolled his sleeves up to his elbows, and she saw gooseflesh spring up on his arms. "No."

"I cannot live down here with you, Erik." She swallowed, her throat tight. "I cannot spend the rest of my life here."

"I know that," Erik said ruthlessly, and his hair became like a black curtain over his eyes. "It was wrong of me to expect you to make such a sacrifice."

"I did," she whispered. "I thought I would, for a time."

"Why?"

Giry felt insubstantial, as though she were about to melt into the fabric of the divan, about to evaporate into the dank air. "After my accident I nearly gave up. Besides my dancing I have had no strong tie to anything, and when I lost that, as well, I felt as though the one rope holding me to the earth had been severed. It would have been so easy to simply float away."

She shook her head. "You have been my one real accomplishment," she murmured, and she looked at him with eyes full of caring, full of maternal love. "My saving grace. I'm afraid I don't have the strength to take my own life, but after my accident it was merely the idea of abandoning you that kept me from such dark thoughts. I imagined your loneliness – I pictured your loneliness like these catacombs, like an immense darkness ready to swallow you up, and I could never allow such a thing to happen because of my own selfishness. I thought that if my life on the surface of the earth had come to such a terrible end, I could at least continue to care for you – I could do that, for you. But it seems that I am weaker than I thought. I cannot so easily tear myself away from the sun – given another chance at life in its light, I abandon the life I could have had in the darkness. I abandon you, knowing that your loneliness will grow to the point where it might consume you."

"You know – and still, you would leave me here?" Erik's voice was quiet. He was looking away from her, now the one unable to meet her eyes, and his own were obscured in shadows, his face hardened beneath the mask by grief and anger. His fingers danced along the edge of the case of his violin.

She was silent, and then said again, softly, "You would be right to forget me."

To be continued.

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