A/N: Just as the Christine of this fic is a Leroux Christine—meaning she is blonde, and was never in the ballet, the Meg and Madame Giry of this fic are also based on Leroux. Meg is small, dark, and thin; Madame Giry was not the ballet mistress, but the box-keeper/usherette who looked after Box Five.
This is now the next day. Erik Sr. went to bed after eating his chocolate mousse.
Anne:
When Virginié came to fetch me, I was trying to make heads or tails of the wine-merchant's listing. Truth be told, my knowledge of wines isn't all that it could be. I know good wine when that I drink it, but there's so many vineyards and years that were good or bad, that with everything else I've to do around here, I can't keep it all straight. And when I've got a wine fixed in my head as good, then all the stock runs out and the merchant can't get no more of it.
The common room is easy to order for—so many liters of vin ordinaire, red and white. It's the wine as is meant for the posh dining room as gives me the trouble. Folk expect to have fine wines to go with fine food. L'Epoque said, when last they wrote us up, as our food was 'superlative', but our wine cellar wasn't up to snuff. It don't matter how good my cooking is, without a wine cellar to match, we won't never be first rank. It's no good asking the merchant to send what he thinks best, cause I tried that once, and he unloaded all manner of plonk on me what no on else would touch, and no guest would order. I'm still using it up as wine vinegar. It's no good for nothing else.
It couldn't have helped that I told the man, when he went and suggested that, as I was a married woman, and anyways, he wasn't nowhere near ugly enough to suit me.
Most times, that makes them laugh.
So I was glad when Virginié came and told me I was wanted, cause there was a mother and her daughter, as was getting married, in with her grandda, and they wanted to have the feast here. I left the wine list, got my book of menus and my book for taking notes, and gave a few orders to keep all going smooth while I was gone. Brides and their mothers can eat up time like Erik does cookies.
"All right—You don't have to do nothing about the strawberry jam as has been canned already; just let it cool down where it be. Ame, you need to watch the glacé de viand, it's got to cook slow. Claude, you got the bread going good, and I knows you know what to do. Minna, you keep on with them vegetables, you're doing fine work. Erik, love, there's something in here as is making a terrible smell. Could you hunt out whatever it is as is stinking?" That having been said, I went out.
I passed the new waitress in the passageway from the kitchen to the main house. "Good morning, Andrea." I said.
"Good morning, Madame." She's a tall girl, with shortish blond hair, and she wears glasses. Monsieur Hussenot says as sometimes he worries they'll fall off the end of her nose whiles she's serving, cause she can't push them back up when her hands is full. I like her right well. She always smiles when she asks after Erik—and a real smile, too, not just baring her teeth as some do.
The inn and kitchen house is more than 250 years old. It looks right romantical, being made of brown-grey stone what has flakes of quartz in it. When the light's right, it shimmers. The roof is slate, and the trim's painted white. Pink roses climb up the walls, here and there, and all that put together makes it a lovely spot for a wedding party.
I knocked on M'sieu Hussenot's door and went in.
The bride was a dainty little dab of a girl, dark-haired—not what you'd call pretty, but there was a spark about her. Her mother had some of that same spark, only being so much older, it had kind of gone off a bit. She had on a hat as had two feathers sticking up, like the feelers on a bug, what twitched around whenever she moved. Made her look a bit batty, truth be told.
"Ah—this is our Madame Touchet," M'sieu Hussenot said. "Madame Touchet, this is Madame Giry, and her daughter, Mademoiselle Marguerite Giry. Mamselle Giry is engaged to be married to the Baron Castelo-Barbazac."
"I give you my best wishes for your happiness, Mademoiselle." I told her.
"Thank you, Madame." she answered.
"I'm telling you again, Meg, he's the wrong man." Her mother's head bobbed, and the feathers danced. "It's all very well that he's a baron, but a baron isn't an emperor. The Ghost said you would be an empress. What will you do when the Emperor comes, once you're married?"
"All due respect to the Ghost, Mama, but no one's heard a peep out of him since Christine Daaé married her Comte."
I had to keep myself from jumping when I heard that.
"And anyway," Meg Giry wasn't done, "the Ghost didn't provide any details—like the emperor's name, for instance. Maybe I'll be widowed, and he'll be my second husband. Maybe Stephan will become Emperor somehow. Or maybe the Ghost meant something—a little less formal."
"Meg Giry! May you be forgiven!" snapped Madame Giry.
"Sorry, Mama. I beg your pardon. The reason why we're here, of course, is because I want to have our wedding reception here. You see, Stephan and I were here a few months ago, back in February. We were going for a drive in his new motor-car, and not only was there thick snow and slush on the roads, but it was sleeting as well. To make a long story short, we wound up in a ditch, until this terribly nice man in a wagon hauled up out and brought us here.
"At first Stephan was as grouchy as a bear, and when he gets into one of those moods, he can just sulk for days. But we took a table, and your waitress brought us this wonderful spicy creamy bisque soup with smoked salmon and tomatoes. By the time he'd finished it, he said 'Well, it could have been worse.'
"Then we had these beautifully flaky pastries with mushroom filling, served with a white truffle cream sauce. He spooned up every trace of that sauce, and then he said, 'Things aren't so bad. The motor isn't damaged, and neither are we.'
"The next course was a shepard's pie, and that was just meltingly delicious. It had a crust of mashed potatoes on top, in pretty star-shaped spikes, baked golden brown. He said, after that, that if the car hadn't had such a good something-or-other mechanical, we could both have been killed, and it was a wonder that it handled so well.
"After that, we had some lovely slices of ham with brandied fruit in a luscious orange Madeira sauce, and he said there was nothing like a narrow escape to make you feel alive.
"Our dessert was so simple—just a creamy cheese, molded in the shape of a heart, on a plate of raspberry sauce, and an almond cookie—but I have to say that I've never tasted anything quite so delicious! By that time, Stephan had fallen silent—but he was looking at me so—tenderly. When the liqueurs and coffee arrived—it was then that he proposed.
"There's something really marvelous about your cooking—almost magical. I've never known anything else that took him from a bad mood to a good one so quickly. I don't suppose I could get you to come work for us, after we're married?"
"Thank you, Mademoiselle, but no. I'm happy where I am." I told her. Poor M'sieu Hussenot looked so alarmed, I wanted to laugh.
"I was afraid of that. Oh, well. I thought it would be romantic to have the reception here, and the menu won't be any trouble, because I want to have the exact same meal as we did that night. And a wedding cake, too, of course."
"That won't be no trouble at all to do—only, when is you planning to be wed?" I asked.
"The end of next month. June 29th, to be exact." she replied.
"It can be done, but the meal you recall is out-of-season. Most of those is cold-weather dishes. I'm in fear your guests'll be fainting from the heat, seeing as it's like to be a hot day, and a boiling hot meal on top of it."
"Oh! I never thought of that…I'm willing to put myself in your hands, Madame Touchet, because I haven't a clue what to order on my own. I need help. What would you suggest?"
You don't get offers like that every day. I took a deep breath afore I began, "Instead of copying that meal entire, that I should take the food what's at the center of each course, salmon, mushrooms, lamb and vegetables, ham and fruit, and make a summer dish using it. To start, instead of a hot, thick soup, what think you of cold salmon, poached in white wine with shallots, and served on a bed of dill-cucumber mousse?"
"That sounds—refreshing." was her answer. "Go on."
"For the second course, a salad of young lettuces and fresh herbs with morel mushrooms, with little knobs of fresh bread and a dressing of walnut oil and brambleberries, picked only that morning, with the dew still on them. The lettuces and herbs have a touch of bitterness to them, which the nut oil mellows and the blackberries sweeten, until all's in balance."
"You're making me hungry! What next?" Meg Giry sat forward and fixed her eyes on me.
"Lamb chops, grilled medium rare, with a terrine of vegetables what are in season. Artichokes, leeks, asparagus, and other such."
"I'll say it only once more, Meg, it shouldn't be him!" put in Madame Giry.
"Hush, Mama. I know. Aren't those vegetables supposed to…inspire the passions?" she asked.
"Happen as they are." I smiled at her.
"Definitely that, then!" she dimpled. "And next is the ham and fruit?"
"For that, I would serve dry-cured ham, sliced thin as paper, wrapped round bites of sweet melon. With it, two kinds of my pâté, and crusty rounds of bread to spread it on. Three of our local cheeses, one of cow's milk, one of sheep's milk, and one of goat's milk. All small portions as'll fit on one plate." Half of cooking is knowing what not to do—not ruining it. Simplest would be best here.
"I've heard it said that a meal without cheese is like a beautiful woman without a nose." said Meg Giry.
"So they say." I agreed, though that saying cuts a hair too close to home. "On the table, there'll be dishes of fruit from our own orchard. Apricots, plums, sweet table grapes, cherries, and figs, so's your guests can take as they choose. They looks right pretty, too, as nice as flowers in their way. Will there be any children in the party?"
"No. The circle I'm marrying into would leave them at home with their nannies. No one under sixteen will be there. Not many of my old friends, either—except for the Countess de Chagny."
I broke my pencil point on the page I wrote. She was coming here. That was good and bad. Bad because I would have to take care the Comte didn't catch sight of me—or Amelié and Claude, cause the photo of Rosalie showed as she was a Norbert, through and through. Good, cause she and I would get to see each other again—and she might get a glimpse of him. I'd write and tell her to come by the kitchen, afore they went—to say she wanted a recipe for her cook, or somewhat.
"No children." I said, and writ it down with the blunt pencil. "The dessert of cream cheese with raspberry sauce is good all year round, but it ought to be only a bite or two, so's everyone will have room for wedding cake. What say you to having two almond cookies in the shape of cockleshells, with the cheese piped in between, like pearls spilling out, on a spoonful of sauce, with perhaps a bit of spun sugar on it, like seaweed?"
"How pretty! And now for the cake. I don't want it to be a fruitcake. I don't care two finger snaps about tradition. I hate fruitcake. And I hate those big white mountains of cakes, too. I want something different. As wonderful as your idea for the cream cheese. Something everyone will talk about."
It was already coming together. "Not fruitcake. The lightest of genoise cakes. Filled with lemon curd, and frosted with a meringue buttercream. In the shape of—the shape of a swan. Life-sized."
"How perfect!" she gasped. "Did you know?"
"Know what?" I hadn't a clue.
"That I'm a ballerina, and he first saw me dance Odette in Swan Lake!"
"No. I didn't know that. I've never been to a ballet."
"What a shame! But do go on. Tell me how."
"I'll cut and shape the baked cake to make the body of the swan. The head, neck and wings will be—meringue. The beak will be candied orange peel, and I'll put slivers of almond in the wings as'll make it look like feathers. They'll bring it out on a serving platter as has a lake of blueberries in sauce.Round about the edges, I'll put candied angelica, like lake reeds."
"Angelica is an herb, isn't it?" she asked.
"Yes. It's got long green stalks."
"I see. I want the swan cake, as you described it. It's too perfect. Only, could you make a little coronet for the swan's head? Out of spun sugar, like the seaweed for the dessert? I wore one when I danced."
"That I can do." I smiled, and took my leave.
I made my way back to the kitchen. It's odd how different toffs are, from folk like me. Any wedding of ours had more children than grown-ups, cause it was an occasion for family. I guess when you start thinking more highly of elegance nor you do of all else, you don't want to have great-grandda bouncing little ones on his knees.
I never had a wedding. Isn't likely as I ever will. I made my bed, and now I got to lie in it—alone.
When I got back there, every one of my staff was looking at me like an axe was going to fall, and I was the one holding it.
"What's wrong?" I looked around. "Where's Erik?"
"Upstairs in his room." said Sophie.
"We know where the smell was coming from." Claude came out with it.
"And what? Did he find it and get sick?" I wondered.
"No—he didn't find it. You should come see." Ame took me out the back door.
On the stoop there sat a narrow drawer. From the knob and the wood I could see it came from the sideboard. It was a funny little drawer as I used for oddments as was too good to toss, but never got used. Now it was full—of something as made me want to heave. It was green and white and brown, and some of it was watery, while most of it was furred with mold. I looked at the stuff.
It was half-chewed broccoli—most of it, anyhow. Looked as if some of it was liver, once. We'd last had liver over a week before. Erik don't like it no more nor he does broccoli—and the sideboard was right behind his chair at the table.
He'd been sneaking food out of his mouth and into the drawer for over a week, at least.
"He went upstairs and hid when we found it. He knows as he's going to be in trouble over it." Amelié explained.
"He's not wrong. Scrape it out on to the midden, won't you, dear? And scour it out with sand and salt. After that, just leave it in the sun for a few days, that should do it."
"Must I?" she asked.
"That's the advantage to being the one as gives the orders. I don't care who does it as long as it gets done. Wait until after I talks to Erik, though."
I went in and up the stairs. "Erik?" I couldn't see hide nor hair of my son in his room, so I opened the wardrobe. No boy in there. Anyone would think, from how he takes on, as I beat him when he's bad, when all he gets is a scolding and sent to bed without dessert.
I looked under the bed. He was curled up against the wall. "How's about coming out now?"
"Are you—are you mad at me?"
"I'm not pleased. Come on now. Sooner it's done is the sooner it's over." He scrambled out, covered in fluffs of dust. I guess I don't sweep out so often as I ought.
"Come on downstairs. Now, what you done is bad in more ways nor one. First of all, you wasted food, and that's just wrong. I know you don't like liver nor broccoli, but it's good for you. We all got to do things as we don't like." I took him out to the stoop.
"Next, you made out as if you ate it, when you didn't, so's you could have dessert. That's a lie, even if you didn't say a word, and that's wrong, too." Although I'm a fine one to talk about lies being wrong. I know it; I just don't know how to stop and get free of them all, and be clean and honest again.
"Last, and most of all, you done something as could cause your Mam trouble. You remember M'sieu Armand and Morenci, as come by every so often? They're health inspectors, and their job is to go around to where food is made and sold, to check that folk don't put chalk dust in the flour or rat meat in the sausages. They also look for bad smells, cause you can't have rotting food in a kitchen. If they had come afore we found this, they'd shut our kitchen down. For days, maybe. And that would be very bad for all of us. I could lose my place over that. You understand me?"
"Yes, Mam!" He was crying. "I'm sorry, Mam. I won't do it, no more, never. I didn't know, Mam. I don't want us to lose our place here!"
"I know you won't, cause you're my good boy," I gathered him to me. "It's just as you're a bit naughty, sometimes. Now, cause for the last week you been eating desserts you didn't earn, all this week there'll be no dessert for you. Now wipe your face. See? All done."
Seems as if this was another day as wasn't going to flow smooth like cream from a pitcher, neither…
A/N: I couldn't decide which recipe to put in…
Eighteen reviews for the last chapter, and that was even with a 48 hour blackout of ff! Wow!
Allegratree: Thanks. I took pains with it, since it was an emotionally important chapter. And as for the book on Pasteur—she's trying to feed an insatiably curious brain, and that was what she came up with. I do have trouble deciding what a chapter is—I tend to go scene by scene.
Bella: I'm sorry you've been so down lately. I'm glad I can help.
Lexi: hope you did well on that physics exam.
Sue Raven: Thanks. Know what not to do to food, and why, is very helpful. I think more cookbooks should tell the reader that.
Mi-Chan: Their relationship has some basis on my grandmother and myself. She was wonderful.
Phantom Raider: I came close to crying as I was writing it. Thanks!
Emily: Hints of Christine in this chapter…
Mia26: He'll be meeting at least one of them in the next chapter, even if it won't be face to face.
HDKingsbury: Thanks, I'll correct them. I read your profile: I recently watched The Man Who Laughs, with Conrad Veidt, for the first time. Had I seen it a few weeks earlier, Erik would have been Erik Gwynplaine rather than Touchet. And I'm a Richard III fan myself—I'm even a member of the Richard III Society. Perhaps we should e-mail each other?
Le Miroir: Thanks! I think that when the shallower obsessions die down, the average quality of writing will go back up, and the phandom will have benefited from some new blood.
An Anti-Sheep Cheese Muffin: I cried while writing chapter 12…
Fishy: Thank you—you're close on some of your speculations, but not all…. (Evil laughter)
ButterflyGuitar: Gladly. Like Water For Chocolate, by Laura Esquivel.
Let me not neglect to shout out to Nota Lone, Josetteand the amazing Pickledishkiller!