How the End Began
The year continued, as years do. Adele and I saw eachother less and less, for she was spending much of her time with Isabella; at least, the time she was not spending in rehearsal. A few times, Adele or Isabella would try to get me to go with them to restaurants, Isabella's house, and so on, but I never went. From the spying I had done on their conversations in the opera house, I liked Isabella; I just didn't want to have anything to do with her. How does one act around the long-lost sister of one's adopted daughter? I had no idea.
October came with a wet slap. Almost overnight Paris grew cold, windy, and rainy, the cold permeating even to my island. Often I had to stop and light fires as I composed because my hands cramped. The cold did not treat Adele well, either. She developed an alarming cough that would not go away. Isabella, Meg, and I begged her to see the doctor, but she refused, saying that it was only a cold; it would go away next week. But it got steadily worse. Often, she had trouble catching her breath while singing and she grew thin, pale, and tired, despite her sensible diet. I watched her with one eye for weeks, and so did Isabella and Meg.
Then, one particularly cold and wet Saturday in December after a performance of I know not what, Adele broke. She had been coughing all day, in fits, and one of these caught her as she was going back to her room after changing back into Adele. This one was worse than all the others: it left her crumpled on the ground, retching and spitting blood as Caroline held Adele's head back in a futile attempt to help her breathe. I dropped through the ceiling and rushed to her, ignoring the screams and yells of the actors.
"Caroline," I said. Caroline covered Adele with her own body, and a ballet boy streaked over to cover both the girls. "I am not going to hurt her!" I shouted. "Out of the way!"
"No, you—you—" Caroline shut her mouth, unable to think of an appropriate word.
I lit a finger on fire and waved it before the ballet boy's face. He broke out in sweat, but didn't move. "You try my patience, Jean-Baptiste de Joué. Move, or you'll regret it." Watching my finger carefully, he stepped aside a little. Caroline stood up and slapped him in the face, turning his nose into a small tomato, before pushing me off Adele. I waved my Finger of Doom at her, and she squealed and ran. I picked Adele up and cushioned my face in her hair, humming. I carried her to her room. Giuseppe followed me, a hand on the hilt of his epée. (Being an Italian actor, he had not made the transition from sword to firearm with the rest of the world. It was a matter of pride, a matter I agreed with him in.)
"Please find the doctor," I told him. "And if you find her, tell Meg—Mme. Giry—what has happened." He did not go. "Now. I swear, Giuseppe, I am as worried about her safety as you are."
"If you hurt her…" he growled.
"Yes, I know. Hurry!" He left as I opened Adele's door. I made her sit up in the bed and waited, watching for any signs that Adele was leaving the breathless, semiconscious daze she had drifted into after the bout of coughing had subsided. Ten minutes later, Giuseppe returned with the opera house's doctor and Meg. Meg gave me a reassuring smile, which I tried to return. The doctor went white, but tried to pretend I wasn't there as he examined Adele.
"She has consumption," he announced at last without looking up. "She may live a while, she may even recover—I don't know."
"Will she sing?" I asked.
"Maybe. She sang tonight, so it is likely she will be able to again." He did not look at me. He bent and poked through his bag and pulled out a bottle, some of the contents of which he spooned into Adele's mouth. After swallowing, she opened her eyes and made a face; apparently the medicine tasted bad.
"I have consumption?" she rasped, looking anxiously at the doctor.
"Yes, Adelita. Where have you been living before you came here? Be brief, please."
"Under the opera house with me," I said. There was no point in hiding any longer—it would be out soon enough.
The doctor looked at me for the first time since he had entered the room, aghast. Giuseppe looked form me to Meg, frowning suspiciously. I knew what he was thinking, and I would have to discourage that train of thought. It was totally absurd, anyway. Meg sat in one of the chairs, arms and legs crossed. When the doctor looked back to Adele, she nodded.
"Well," began the doctor. He then shook himself and resumed his usual professional sangfroid. "Is there not a lake under the opera house?" he asked of nobody in particular.
"Yes," I answered.
"Is it cold down there?"
"Generally, yes."
"And humid?"
"Yes."
The doctor looked reproachfully at me, a very daring move. "Then what do you expect, M. le Phantôme? That sort of air will cause consumption in a circus strongman." He looked me over with a doctor's gaze, and I was suddenly very glad that I had ever been to see a doctor. "You do not have it, though, I think. That is strange, if you are human."
"I am, Monsieur." Adele reached up and tapped my shoulder. I leaned close to hear her whisper, "Make him leave. I don't like him."
"Your patient desires your departure, Monsieur," I said, bowing floridly. "I hope you understand…." I said it with the slightest hint of a threat in my voice.
The doctor caught the hint. "Of—of course, Monsieur. Please call me if there are problems." He left so quickly I barely saw, and Meg and I followed him after Adele gave Giuseppe a look. Meg sat on a bench in the hall, and I sat against the wall across from her, head on my knees. I could feel her staring at me, and it was a discomfortingly nice feeling.
"What?" I demanded.
"You heard the doctor," Meg said reassuringly. "She might live. I think she will."
There was a silence. "Well….That's…good, I suppose." The silence continued awkwardly. The clock chimed midnight, and I heard someone coming. I looked up. It was Caroline. She looked at me, then Meg, then the door and back to me. She sat weakly next to Meg.
"Would someone please tell me what's going on?"
"I'm her father," I said, pointing at the door.
"Giuseppe is in there?" Caroline asked. Meg and I nodded. "What…is the problem?"
"Consumption," Meg said simply. Caroline looked at me, and I nodded. She stood and walked away quickly, pulling out a handkerchief. "Oh, dear," Meg whispered. Then she said to me, "You've given up on secrecy, then?"
"Yes." I dropped my head back onto my knees.
Giuseppe came out of Adele's room and shut the door quietly. "Asleep," he said. I went in and sat next to her in the chair. I watched her face—when she was asleep, she always looked like a cat, I thought—until I slept myself. I had strange dreams about Meg and Christine that I do not really remember.