A/N So I finally have a little time (and inspiration) to write. Yay! So here we go with Chapter Three!
Chapter Three: The Ghost Appears
Charlotte sat on the white satin couch, waiting anxiously for her father to speak. There were several long moments of uncomfortable silence as he stared into the fire a letter in one hand and his brandy glass clutched in the other. She clutched the white silk robe around her, it was the only thing hiding the elegant white lace nightgown she wore, it was something only a married woman should wear, but Charlotte found it more comfortable than anything else, one of many reasons the servants thought her mad. After what seemed like hours he turned to her and Charlotte held back a gasp of fear at what she saw.
"Is this meant to be some sort of joke?" His steel grey eyes burned with a terrible rage and the thing that broke Charlotte's heart, hatred.
"I have no idea of what you speak of father." Charlotte held her chin high and matched her father, glare for glare.
"Don't play coy with me child, you know well what I speak of, this note!" He through the paper at her roughly. Charlotte suppressed a laugh as she read the letter.
Monsieur Ó hEachthairn,
I welcome you to my theatre. You may or may not have been warned of me, or my salary. So, I shall simply inform you myself. I require a salary of twenty thousand francs a month and the use of Box Five, or great and terrible disasters shall occur. I also request that you allow your daughter to sing in the stead of that tremendous cow you have hired.
Your obedient friend and Angel,
O.G.
O.G….. Opera Ghost… Erik! Charlotte couldn't suppress the smile that played at the corner of her lips. Erik had called Senorita Sanchez a cow.
"Ah ha! I knew you were behind this! I have told you already, no one would pay to see a creature like you sing unless it were in a gypsy camp!" The tears fell, unbidden, down Charlotte's pale cheeks.
"I had nothing to do with this father! I swear it on Momma's grave!"
"Your mother's grave! Ha! Your mother was lying bitch! I doubt that you are even my child! Your mother's only value was that she was rich and beautiful. A fine prize for a British Lord such as my self. Even though I doubted that you were my daughter, for how could one as good looking as myself spawn such an ugly thing, I raised you and made you a Lady, and my heir after your mother died. Is this how you repay my kindness? You ungrateful little bitch!" He threw Erik's note onto the fire. Sobs tore at Charlotte's throat as she watched Erik's clumsy, childish handwriting burn to ashes through tear-blurred vision.
"You arrogant bastard!" She screamed at her father. "You foolhardy, arrogant bastard! I hate you! You are the most evil mean to walk this earth! I hate with all my heart" Charlotte sobbed in her anger. All her life Charlotte's father had never hit her, until that moment. The force of the blow knocked her to the floor. Charlotte lay there for a moment, her hand covering the stinging place on her cheek where a bruise was already forming. The tears fell silently now as Charlotte lifted herself from the floor.
"That will teach you to speak to me in that manner." He hissed. Charlotte stood tall gathering the pieces of her broken heart and broken pride.
"It will teach me nothing, but that you are a cold and cruel man." With that final sentiment Charlotte turned and fled to her room.
She threw her self onto her bed, sobbing into her pillow. Once her sobs had abated enough for her to think, Charlotte grasped for the only escape she knew. She reached silently for the sewing basket by her bed and pulled out the scissors. She touch the cold blade to the pale skin on her arm and drew it lightly down her arm. She felt the giddy shock of pain erasing everything else as she watched the skin open letting the river of crimson blood flow down the snow-pale skin. This escape was one she learned long ago at the finishing school her father had sent her to after her mother's death. It was an art she had perfected and learned to hide from those around her.
Charlotte replaced the scissors in the basket and walked quietly outside to the garden. The moonlight danced across the emerald sea of the sycamore leaves and the white roses glowed delicate silver as they basked in the beams of cold light. Her pale hands gently brushed the velvet smooth petals of a rose colored so deep a crimson that it looked almost black in the pale light. Charlotte jumped at the light touch on her shoulder. She turned quickly praying that it wasn't her father, she found, to her immense relief, that it wasn't.
Erik hadn't meant for the girl to know to ever know that he had been there. He had wanted only to see the place where she lived with the man who know owned his theatre, but the garden had attracted him, with it's rich, almost wild smell. A smell of mystery, with a mix of roses and gardenias among others. It was as he was walking among the many roses that he saw her. She walked like wild mare who'd had it's spirit broken. Her was lose and tangled her pale shoulders, which weren't covered by the loose lace nightgown she wore. The gown was white and floated about her curved figure elegantly. Her skin seemed to glow almost silver in the moonlight, making her look very much like a ghost. He stepped quietly behind her as she admired the dark beauty of a blood red rose. He placed his hand lightly on her shoulder and felt the shock go through her body. She spun quickly to look him, fear in her dark brown eyes. Her face was tearstained and though she didn't think herself beautiful, that night Erik saw in her tearstained face an ethereal, almost wild beauty
"Erik!" She said breathlessly, relief flooding her eyes. "What are you doing here?"
"Admiring the roses, the same as you." He smiled a little. She returned the smile, though it did not mask the pain that filled her eyes. His eyes studied her face, and landed on the dark bruise that marred one pale cheek. He gently touched it watching her flinch, not with fear, but with pain. His eyes asked what his voice could not.
"My father and I had a…. disagreement." She murmured, lowering her eyes. He didn't have to ask about what. He shook his head sadly.
"I never did think it right for men to treat there wives and children in such manner", he whispered, gently pushing a strand of hair out of her face.
Charlotte shivered a little at touch, but not in fear… it was something else, something that she couldn't grasp to name. She laid a tentative hand on his and watched the shock that registered in his face.
"I must go," he said dropping his hand, "and you must rest, your fathers gala of Faust is tomorrow night, though I doubt it will go well." Charlotte just nodded, silently, pretending not to notice that he glanced down at her body before he left.
"Farewell, my Angel of the Night," she whispered to his retreating figure.
It was only after Erik had gone that she remembered the angry red line of her escape earlier that night and the pale, grey-white scars of those from years past. She wondered if Erik hadn't noticed or if he had just pretended not to. No matter, he hadn't asked the questions she longed to avoid, and as he'd said the gala was tomorrow and she was anxious to see just what Erik had planned.
Charlotte woke at sunrise, on the day of the gala, and put on her robe, before going into the garden where she had seen Erik the night before. Had that meeting been real? Or was it just the product of a girls pain and overactive imagination? She traced the leaves of a dew-kissed, pale yellow rose. She inhaled the clear morning air and watched the misty sunrise, the promise of new and beautiful day. A promise which, for Charlotte, was always broken. She sighed heavily and went indoors to prepare for breakfast with her father.
Breakfast started silent, with only hateful glares passing between Charlotte and her father. Charlotte did not eat, but only pushed at the bountiful meal before her. She jumped when her father cleared his throat.
"I have come to a decision." His voice had that same pompous air to it as it always did. "You, dear, will sit in Box Five tonight to see whether or not there is a ghost and I shall sit with you to make sure you cannot lie to me. Oh, and another thing, I have started to look for men who will make a suitable husband for you, one who can… temper your spirit, and of course who cares more for money than beauty." Charlotte held back the stream of tears that threatened to fall at the thought of the cruel man her father had in mind for her. She would refuse any suitor her father presented, no matter the cost.
That night was the first night Charlotte saw her father's Prima Donna, Senorita Rosario Sanchez was gorgeous, her long black hair glowed in the stage light like an ebony fountain and with the new opera glasses Charlotte could see the calculating green eyes, that shone like emeralds, but the Prima Donna's voice held no passion, no emotion as she sang, though her voice was pretty enough. Though she couldn't see Erik, Charlotte felt him and his anger, and soon she heard him, just a soft melodic whisper in her ear.
"Don't worry, child, I shall fix this disaster." Charlotte smiled, wondering how Erik would fix this, but not doubting that he would. She turned to look at her father, but saw that his face was pale with fright, Erik was talking to him. She was dying to know what he was saying, but doubted she ever would. It wasn't long after that, that Senorita Sanchez began to moo, instead of singing. Charlotte laughed and her father ran down to the stage to get a hand on the situation. As he held the sobbing Prima Donna in his arms Charlotte knew how she had gotten the part, she could see it in the she clung to him and the places he gently and discreetly brushed with his hands, but her anger was soon forgotten.
"Madams and Messieurs I beg of you to forget this disaster and forgive the shortness of this performance. I would like to invite you all to our gala in two weeks time when the role of Marguerite, will be played Mademoiselle Ó hEachthairn. Mademoiselle if you will get out here, please."
Charlotte rushed down the stairs, knowing that if she didn't hurry, she would later be beaten for it. Her father grabbed her wrist, his grip bruising it, and pulled her roughly onto the stage. The audience was murmuring discontentedly.
"If… If you bring the program from tonight's performance, you will be allowed free entry." The audience stopped their complaints. "Once again I apologize and bid you goodnight."
Once the people had left and Senorita Sanchez was sedated and waiting in her dressing from Charlotte's father, he turned his anger on her.
"I don't know how you did it, but I know you're behind this." His voice was nothing more than an arrogant hiss. He struck her several times, over and over and when she fell to the floor he kicked her over and over in her stomach and head, until finally Charlotte allowed the pain to flood her and drag into the darkness of unconsciousness.