Anne:

It wasn't even dawn yet, but I was up, having seen off my husband-to-be and his friend on the train to Lyons. Now I was trying to write a letter to the Countess. I'd meant to write it a week gone by, but with one thing and another, it hadn't got writ.

It wasn't such a grand week, truth be told. Madame Hussenot got on her uppers, cutting up all stiff and polite at me cause I turned out to be the owner of the inn. When I went to her to ask if she and Monsieur Hussenot would sponsor the two of us, meaning my lad's father and me, back into the church so's we could be married in a state of grace, it took some doing to get her to turn up sweet.

'My lady,' I wrote. 'I hope you and yours is all as well as could be wished for. I don't know when you shall get this on account of you traveling abroad like what you is doing, so like as not we shall be married when you reads this, the day being set for three days from now.'

"Mam?" My lad tugged at my sleeve, sending a little shower of ink drops over the table—but none on the letter, thank goodness. I wiped it up.

"Yes, love?"

"Da'll be back for dinner like he said, won't he?"

"Course he will. He won't want to miss his dinner."

It was a wonder I'd got that far with the letter before he broke in. Two whole sentences.

"So he'll come back?"

"Yes, dearheart. Hush now, your Mam's trying to write a letter."

"Oh."

'My lad's father having found us, and some to-do being made, as you might think, we talked and come to an understanding.'

If her husband came across this, as he might, I wasn't going to put in a word as could reveal a thing to him.

"Mam?"

"Yes, love?"

"Can I sit in your lap?"

"Not right now, love. I got to write this letter, and you've got too big to hold and write at the same time."

"Oh. Will you be done writing soon?"

"All the sooner if you'll be a good, quiet lad what stops interrupting."

"Oh. I'm sorry, Mam."

"That's all right, love. Hush, now."

'We are to be married in church, and he shall live along of us, as my husband and his son's father. I am in hopes as all shall be well.'

Better nor the last week had been, anyways. All of Evrondes had been by the inn in the past week, hoping to catch a glimpse of my returned husband. And to have a few words with me over why we was only going to be church-married now.

Only seeing how happy my boy and his Da was with each other had got me through it. Although the older of my Eriks was turning out to be a dab hand at dealing with such troubles as the wine-merchant and the poulterer, who'd gone pale when that he was told, in a voice that froze blood, as his birds wasn't acceptable. I was grateful to him for it.

'As you might guess, he has got a lot of questions, but I said as I couldn't give him many answers till that I wrote to you and the others what you knows of, not naming any names.'

"Mam?"

"Yes, love?"

"Who're you writing to?"

Three sentences I'd got down this time. He was doing his best, but he wasn't real good at keeping quiet.

"To Rosalie's Mam."

"Rosalie! Tell her they got to come and stay along of us!"

"Now, dearheart, you know that isn't going to happen. Hush and let your Mam write."

'So I am asking now that you should let me tell him. He's not angry with you nor with me, and matters is such between us that I doubt he'll get too mad when he finds out.'

Matters in that respect was very good. When we kissed, it was as though my very bones should melt.

And he was so damn grateful, I was on the verge of tears half the time.

'He loves the lad right well already, and the boy has taken to his Da like a house afire.'

"Aunt Anne?" Ame was at the door.

"Yes, love?" Seemed as I'd said that a lot today.

"It's Sophie. She still hasn't sat up."

"Let her rest, if that's what she wants. I can fix her breakfast fresh if she's an appetite for it later." Sophie had been feeling poorly the day before, which was usual when the weather changed, and had kept to her room. I'd sent her meals in without another thought.

"But she don't look right, Aunt. And she don't act like she hears me even when I talk real loud." I looked at Amelié's worried face and went straight down to Sophie.

She didn't look at me when I went in, nor when I laid my hand on her brow, which was hot with fever, and clammy. I said "Sophie?" and she didn't open her eyes.

"Ame, you and Erik run over to the stables, and get Claude and one of the hands. Tell them one of them's to go for Doctor Chilperic, and—."

"And what?" Ame asked.

"The other's to go for Father Anselm."

I got Minna to make up a thin gruel with honey in it, which I could spoon into Sophie if I had to, and when she was out of the room, I peeled back the covers. As hot and sweated as she was, Sophie needed a bit of air. I uncovered one of her legs—and saw that from the knee down, it was swole up like a sausage, so's I couldn't tell joint from limb, all the way down to the toes. It wasn't a healthy color, neither. Then I saw the crusty bandage on her foot, and I knew this was all my fault.

It was the same bandage I'd put on over a week before, when she'd cut it clipping her nails. It hadn't been changed. Nor had I looked at it when she'd asked me to, the day my lad's father came in. I'd forgot all about it until that very moment, and she hadn't asked again.

I took off the bandage, careful as could be, and looked. The toe was red as a raspberry and hot to the touch, swollen, shiny, and foul-smelling. I pressed on the flesh, gentle-like, and the scab broke. Green pus burst out of the break. I caught up a clean cloth and wiped it away, pressed again, got more pus, wiped again. "Minna, fetch that bottle of Russian Vodka, would you?" That vodka would kill near anything as wasn't Russian.

When Amelié and Erik got back from the stables, I sent them out to weed. Then I called Ame back and sent her over for Madame Hussenot. I still had breakfast to make for the inn, and lunch. Work don't stop even when your heart's breaking. Madame Hussenot came, saw what was going on, and set about helping. Breakfast was going to be simple that morning, but it would be on the table.

The stable hand returned to say the doctor was out delivering a baby and no one knew when he might be back.

"Minna, fetch my sewing basket—and the best filleting knife we got." I knew enough doctoring to know the pus had to be drained. When the blood ran clean, I washed it all with vodka, and sewed it shut. I boiled the knife. A good knife is too good to waste.

It weren't no use. It was too little, too late, and maybe I hadn't done enough.

I got out her rosary, the one what belonged to her grandmother and had been blessed by one of the popes, she couldn't recollect which, and I put it in her hand.

Father Anselm came. I'd had the thought as putting ice from the refrigeration machine on her head to drive down the fever might do some good, and it did. It brought her round enough that she could listen to him for a while as he prayed over her.

Lunch had to be made. The waitresses came and helped too. Daphne and Andrea was all over the place, and others of them. For once in my life, I couldn't stomach my own cooking.

She died just before the clock struck four. Father Anselm said as all was right, and she died in a state of grace, with the last rites said over her.

My boy started howling, this being the first time as any body he knew had died, and that set off Truffle howling, and Ame started crying, and Minna rocked back and forth like she does when she gets real upset, but I—just couldn't. All I could do was sit down, with a heaviness in my heart like thick mud. A blackness was closing in on me, darker than night.

Father Anselm sat along of me, and asked, "My child?"

"It was my fault for not looking after that cut, Father. Now she's died of it. Please, sir, don't go telling me it was Our Lord what put it into my heart to forget, cause it was her time, cause I heard it afore and it isn't no comfort. It was my fault." My fault again…

He looked like he was about to say something, thought better of it, and closed it again. Then he said, "I know that you know the teaching of our faith. Think on that, and be comforted. Have masses said for her, pray for her—and instead of thinking her life was cut short, remember where she was and what her life was like before you took her in. Think instead that you lengthened her life by a year, two years, maybe three. Without the comforts you provided, and the knowledge that she was wanted, needed, and loved here, she might well have turned her face to the poorhouse wall and died in her first winter there."

It was then that I started to cry. "I said I'd look after her and see her buried proper when that time came. I never thought it'd be so soon!"

A/N: Shouting out! Thank you, KLMeri! I was going for a tone as close to Leroux as I could in that chapter. (I so love it when people notice!)

Hi, Sarah Crawford. Erik Sr. sounds like Anne? (The author thinks furiously.) Umm—couples do start to sound like one another when they grow closer? Unintentional on my part, I assure you.

Hello, Rozzandmaya! How did you like Corpse Bride? (You don't know what you're missing over in Minion. Joviana is doing for the superhero genre what your Christine did for POTO in Little Moments…

So many shout outs! Let me put a bunch of them together. Thank you to Lucia, Phantom Raver, Allegratree, Erik for President, Polly Moopers, Nota Lone, MadLizzy, Pickledishkiller (long time no hear!) Sat-Isis, Lindaleriel, HDKingsbury (they found Richard and Anne's dispensation! Yay!) Alittlerayofsunshine, An Anti-Sheep Cheese Muffin, Masqueradingthroughlife, Bella, and last but never least, Josette and Awoman!