Chapter One
"Higher! I want more elevation. E-le-va-tion," shrieked Madame Giry. "Can you not lift that leg higher?" She waved her cane irritatedly at a tall, gangly ballerina who struggled with an arabesque at the far end of the stage and Francesca frantically tried her best to comply with her dancing teacher's insatiable demands.
Madame Giry's head snapped to the left upon hearing chattering that had long since been increasing in volume and fervor. "Stop talking, Anna and Lina. Don't think I cannot see you. You are so loud Mrs. O'Connor can hear you all the way from outside this auditorium." She brandished her wooden cane at them and they hurriedly quietened.
Mrs. O'Connor was the head-cleaning woman who was wholly deaf in one ear, partially deaf in the other and had a distinct dislike for the noisy ballerinas who often poked fun at her potato-like figure. The ballet mice often mocked her with lousy imitations of her well-known "Ye be getting off my clean, clean floor now!" Her appearance in the auditorium usually was greeted with rude insults hurled by the ballerinas but her deafness made their efforts a waste of time.
One of the prima ballerinas, Giselle, tried to complete a series of steps but fumbled. Giselle was already tired out and her foot was sickled. Giselle's face contorted as she concentrated to balance on one foot.
Madame Giry, who was in an unusually snappy mood, raised her voice.
"I said grand jetè in to effacè position, not en evant!"
Giselle cringed and chassed to face the left corner. All the dancers stopped talking. When Madame Giry got angry at any of the prima ballerinas, she was most likely to lose her already flammable temper at anyone who displeased her. Her cane connected more oft than not with the dancers' limbs when Madame Giry was not happy.
"Again, from the fouettè en tournant."
She followed.
Giselle's ankle gave way under her and she ended up landing on her bottom, her leg twisted at an awkward angle underneath her on the shiny wooden polished floor with an ear splitting scream of pain, that the pianist stopped short with a loud dissonant chord that made Madame Giry wince.
"My feet! My feet, it hurts!" Giselle could do nothing but clutch her ankle, her face a pasty white. The ballerinas rushed to gather around her.
Madame Giry pushed her way through the crowd of anxious dancers with some difficulty and landed on her knees next to Giselle who was close to fainting from the pain.
"Quick, Agnes, run and get some ice from the kitchen. Does this hurt?" she asked, probing a spot above Giselle's ankle. A loud wail arose from the middle of the throng. The other ballerinas followed suit and wailed alongside her.
"You are all babbling, and it is impossible to hear what Giselle is saying to me. Go away, take a break or something," Madame Giry dismissed them hurriedly, and the dancers fled, eager to get a chance to take a little rest, their friend's pain forgotten with the lure of a short reprieve.
"How am I to dance tomorrow night, Mam'zelle?" Giselle's lower lip quivered, and Madame Giry sat back on her haunches.
"You can't, not with your ankle, Giselle," she said, and Giselle's tears burst forth anew. "You may be able to dance in two months, though, when the next opera is out."
Giselle sat erect, her face ashen.
"Two months? What am I going to do in two months?"
Madame Giry fingered her long thick braid, her sharp eyes scanning the stage, already mentally deciding which ballerina would be fit to replace Giselle.
"I'm not sure, Giselle. We'll figure something out," she muttered. She left the downcast prima ballerina with a friend and dropped herself down on a stool placed at the corner of the stage for her convenienve.
Her lead ballerina was gone, and she would have to go through all the trouble to find a substitute. How delightfully unnecessary.
"Justina, will you please take Giselle to her dressing room? I'll send in Agnes with the ice later," said Madame Giry, waving her hand absently.
Meg Giry sat herself down next to her mother, and yanked off her stiff pointé shoes, groaning as she pulled off her toe pads. She looked at her mother.
"Maman?" she asked quietly, pulling at her stockings. Meg pulled at a tendril of hair around her face, tugging it impatiently.
Madame Giry gave a half hearted 'mmph?', not really paying attention.
Maria? Madame Giry asked herself. No. Maria was too flighty headed. She would most likely get all worked up, practice till three in the morning and collapse of stage fright an hour before the performance.
"Maman, what about Seraphina?" Meg Giry pulled at her mother's coarse dancing shift.
Bridgette. Madame Giry surveyed the fair blond dancer flirting with a stage hand at the side of the stage, toying with the heavy drapes with her fingers. No, she decided. Bridgette had not been paying much attention to lessons lately, being too consumed with her new interest in Joseph.
Madame Giry wrinkled her nose subconsciously. Joseph needed a hair cut very badly. His beard was overgrown and he smelled like a bag of week old turnips. And he talked too much. What Bridgette saw in him, she'd never guess. Madame Giry quietly glanced upwards, trying to see in to the darkness, barely making out the planks used by stagehands, and the numerous ropes and tallies, tangled up in one another. The ropes made fast lassoes.
Joseph Buquet, she silently warned, you are going to get yourself in grave danger if you do not learn how to hold your tongue. The Phantom is faster than you are.
She snapped out of her reverie to her daughter's continued fretting at her skirt.
"What is it?" she said, a little sharply, annoyed at being disturbed.
"I have a good idea." The words tumbled quickly out of Meg's rose bud mouth.
"You have far too many good ideas, ma cherié," said Madame Giry, smiling slightly at her daughter's talkativeness. Too many times had that lively tongue gotten her in to big trouble.
"But it is a good idea! An excellent idea, in fact," rambled on Meg. "Why don't you choose Seraphina? She is a brilliant dancer, yet you never give her a solo part in the dances." Meg said, unhindered by her mother's edgy tone.
Madame Giry swept a cursory glance over to where Sephy stood, silently retying her laces. Long brown tendrils escaped her high bun, framing a rosy, heart shaped face. Madame Giry's eyes took in Sephy's slim limbs, nodding approvingly at Sephy's unconscious turn out even though she was not dancing.
"That is not half a bad idea," murmured Madame Giry. Sephy was extremely hard working, and had much expression in her dance movements. Her technique was nothing special but she danced with so much life, so much feeling and exuberance that the audience could feel this magnetic field, drawing eyes to her as she graced the stage.
She was graceful, she knew her work and she was roughly the same size as Giselle. A perfect fit for her costume. Why didn't I think of that before?
She gave her daughter a grudging smile, and landed a light kiss on her daughter's head.
"For once, you have said something that is not entirely nonsense," Madame Giry said approvingly, tousling Meg's hair. Meg frowned in indignation.
"I speak good sense all the time; you just choose to ignore what makes sense, and you pick out everything I say that is unimportant, then call it nonsense," protested Meg, a slight crease appearing in her forehead, even as she gave in to laughter.
Madame Giry slowly got up, and made her way over to Seraphina.