Hm, I wonder if anyone is still reading?.. For those who might be (and if you are, please take a moment to review!), a quick recap: Raoul is in the army, Erik is working in Sedan; Helena Weiss was attacked in Paris and Madame Giry has just found out that Meg is up to something. So, on to Meg...

Chapter 27 – Fireworks

Meg shifted her right leg further along the barre, until the slice of light from the half-open window fell on her ankle again, making the criss-crossed ribbons of her pointe shoe glow white. She bit back a pained breath. Her leg had gone numb and the movement seemed to set a swarm of bees buzzing in her calf. Determinedly, she resumed the pose, leaning along her leg to touch her pointed toe, as though caught mid-stretch.

"No, further to the left. In the light."

Meg stretched a little further. "Like this?"

Monsieur de Gas did not reply, so she assumed the adjustment had satisfied him. She froze, listening to the meticulous scratching of his chalk on cardboard behind her, back and forth. The pose was not as difficult as the one she had held on the previous two sittings, but it left her nothing to look at except the heavy green curtain in front of her face, a view that was not especially exciting. Meg directed her eyes down to the floor instead and tried to read the newspapers that lined it without moving her head. Between splashes of paint, the headlines threatened: "Siege of Metz Set To Continue", "Prussian Spy Arrested", "MacMahon Pushes North", and the latest: "Crown Prince of Prussia Marching for Paris! Citizens, To Arms!"

"Your foot," Monsieur de Gas's deep voice interrupted.

Meg steadied her wobbling ankle. "Is that yesterday's Le Temps, monsieur? I hope they're exaggerating about the Prussians."

"Am I am paying you twelve francs a sitting to read newspapers?" grumbled Monsieur de Gas. "I should throw you out and use Helena for all these studies. How is her father, by-the-by?"

"Still unwell." Helena had not dared to come to the previous day's sitting for fear of provoking her father, who was nursing a swollen jaw and a foul temper after somebody at the markets called him a spy. Even in the theatre, a few girls had made nasty remarks during the matinee.

"And was he really spying?"

Meg huffed. "Only if the Prussians need the price of turnips at Les Halles."

Monsieur de Gas made a gruff sound of amusement. Meg heard him sorting through a box of chalk beside the easel, before he resumed drawing. "All the same, this business with missing her sittings has to stop. I have clients waiting for that picture. And who knows how long they will be prepared to wait, with these news?"

Meg thought of the headlines under her foot. Raising her eyes, she determinedly focused instead on the moth-eaten backdrop. Monsieur de Gas had been particular about using an olive-green fabric, and Meg now turned the question over in her mind, wondering what possible effect its colour could have on a drawing done in chalk and charcoal. She thought of asking, but decided against it; to an artist at work, a model curious about art would probably seem much like a ballet slipper that started to talk.

This was what Christine had disliked immediately, the day Helena had brought them both here. Meg had fallen in love with the studio as soon as she saw it, with its skylights half-draped to cut the glare, with the dizzying odour of oils, with the paintings that slumped in various attitudes against the walls like a flock of migratory birds. But Christine's eyes had been riveted to the empty modelling platform, and she had looked uneasy and almost repulsed, as though the thing was a spotlit stage or a guillotine. We would be tools, she had said quietly. The artist's model, the dancer's shoe, the carefully nurtured voice singing the passion in somebody else's music: neither the art not its creator, but an instrument in the hands of another. Under the eyes of the artist, the model became not a girl but an idea. The girl disappeared.

That was true, Meg supposed, yet when Monsieur de Gas had told her she could come back the next day, her heart had soared. She liked it here. And what was more, she would get paid. Who would have thought you could get sixty francs for five sittings, just holding a pose? It was demanding, even with all her ballet training, but it was also fun to be surrounded by art, to observe its creation. And, fun or not, they did need the money. She had checked her mother's household ledger only the day before, and no matter how carefully Madame Giry budgeted, they were constantly having to cut back on something else. Things were difficult with the war. Prices were rising fast, and if even half of what the newspapers threatened was true, they would continue doing so. The few extra francs that her mother made looking after the Théâtre Français might have been enough before the war, but not now.

Meg rolled her shoulders uneasily, trying to imagine having this conversation with her mother. Her neck was going numb from holding the stretch against the barre. She turned her head a little.

"Hold still!" said Monsieur de Gas. Judging by the impatient sound of cross-hatching, the drawing was giving him trouble.

"I'm sorry." It was becoming more and more difficult to force her legs to obey. The strain in her spine made the rest of her body tremble. Meg struggled for a moment longer, until Monsieur de Gas set down his chalk in frustration.

"Enough. If you can't stand up straight, go and rest."

Meg slid gratefully out of her pose, and into a whole new wave of pain. Her left foot felt wooden, her arms were stiff, and cold needles shot through her legs to her lower back. She sank down onto the floor beneath the barre, leaning forward to massage her calves. She was about to get up when Monsieur de Gas cried:

"Stay there!"

Startled, Meg saw he had snatched up a new sheet of paper and a pencil, his dark brows coming together over his eyes. The pencil's quick whisper replaced the chalk and all at once he was absorbed in drawing, her reprieve forgotten. Meg's heart sank.

"I can't hold this pose for long, Monsieur de Gas."

"No need." He made a note on the edge of the paper and leaned back in his chair, tapping the drawing with the back of the pencil. He nodded slightly, then waved her off. "Go ahead and change, this will do for today. In any case the light is bad now."

Relieved, Meg struggled to her feet and went behind the screen in the corner to change back into her street clothes. Even after five sittings, she still felt a little self-conscious about this arrangement, as though it was something indecent in donning her ballet gear outside the theatre. It was stupid, she told herself, considering how many people saw her in exactly the same costume in the theatre every night. She stepped into her dress hastily, arranging her skirts and buttoning up the bodice.

"When you are ready, I have a poster here you might want to see," came Monsieur de Gas's voice from the other side of the studio.

"A poster?" Meg did up the last button and walked out from behind the screen.

"Agathe Giry is your mother, is she not?"

"Yes," Meg began – and fell silent. From between some cardboard sheets that stood against one wall, Monsieur de Gas had extracted a large watercolour in shades of blue and lilac, an old advertising poster for the Opéra Populaire. An elegant young ballerina stood bathed in ethereal blue light, with the rest of the Wilis lined up behind her. Above, the ornate letters spelled: "Giselle". And below, "With Mlle. Agathe Giry in the title role. Music by Adolphe Adam."

"You may keep it if you like."

"Wherever did you get it?" said Meg in amazement. She had seen a smaller version of the painting among her mother's letters; it was one of the watercolours her father had done for the Opéra when he could not make money selling canvases.

"They had an auction at the old Opéra yesterday; old props and such." Monsieur de Gas regarded the poster critically, combing his fingers through his short beard and leaving traces of chalk. "Not a bad painter, Jules Robuchon – though too much in admiration of Delacroix's colour and not nearly enough attention to line. Still, there is one or two interesting works of his at the Luxembourg. The sketch of a tiger from the Jardin des Plantes is worth more than a casual look."

"Oh yes," Meg said warmly. "There is also the garden scene, with the light broken up by the trellis."

"So there is." Monsieur de Gas glanced at her in surprise. "You have a good eye. Here, pass me that newspaper, I'll wrap it up for you."

"May I really keep it? You don't mind?"

"Of course you may, what would I want with it? It is your mother, after all." He rolled it into a newspaper and handed the package to Meg, who was beaming.

"Enough, enough," he motioned at her in good-natured exasperation. "Get along home, and see that you're on time tomorrow! Here's your fee."

"I will be," Meg promised. She put the money away and danced out of the studio, hugging the poster to her chest. She could not wait to show it to her mother. The only problem was explaining where it came from, but she could always say Helena had bought it at the auction. It was a pity they had not known of it; they could have gone to see what was left of their old home, even if they could not afford to buy anything. However, neither thoughts of the destroyed Opéra, nor the ache in her muscles from holding the pose could dent Meg's good mood. Jumping over the last two stairs, she flew out through the front door, into the last of the mild afternoon that was already becoming evening.

Her mother was outside, waiting.

o o o

"Thanks." Raoul returned the map he and Cloutier had borrowed to the aide-de-camp, who took it away, down to headquarters. Raoul looked around. They had camped among the vineyards near the town of Mouzon, surrounded by green meadows and hills, with the silver thread of the Meuse shimmering in the distance. For three days now they had been marching from Le Chêne, via La Besace and now Mouzon, ever further north, pressing forward to join the other three corps and take up a position from where to give battle. More than once they had heard fighting, but it always seemed to be just one or two Prussians up in the hills, and although some of the men shot at them, Raoul could tell it was nothing more than a show. The real battle lay ahead, and they were chasing the Prussians towards it. Only, as their marches filled up day after day, Raoul had the unpleasant growing sensation of déjà vu, as though the Prussians were not running from them but on the contrary, herding them directly into a trap.

"Not much of a map, is it," said Cloutier, chewing on the end of his cigarette. They had found some tobacco in Mouzon, which had somewhat revived the offices' spirits. "I heard they took it from the school in town."

Raoul flicked the stub of his own cigarette to the powdery ground, extinguishing it with the toe of his boot. "I don't know where that map came from, but it'll be no use to anyone. The scale must have been calculated by a schoolboy. It's all wrong."

Cloutier grunted noncommittally, squinting into the sun as though to get his bearings. "How do you know?"

"I was born around here. Near Chagny."

"You don't say." Cloutier removed the cigarette from his mouth, appraising Raoul as though seeing him for the first time. He gave a deep laugh, "You're serious, aren't you! You've got ancestral lands with that title?"

"Hardly. My grandfather built a house there. I haven't been back here in years, but I know this much: that's the Dieulet woods up ahead." Raoul indicated the hazy line of forested hills. "Do you think they'll have us march before nightfall?"

"Who knows."

Their movements had slowed to a crawl of late, endless delays forcing them to stand around idle for hours and now to make camp for no reason anyone could see. Some said it was due to the worsening health of the Emperor, who still remained with the their corps. Privately, Raoul feared that if the map he had seen was anything to judge by, the generals had no more idea where they were going than the soldiers did.

"If that's the Dieulet woods," said Cloutier slowly, "how far to the Belgian frontier?"

"Perhaps thirty kilometres. We've just about got our backs to... What was that?"

In the next instant Raoul had his answer; the whistle he had heard exploded, shattering the sky. Another shell followed and another, great arcs that burst over the woods like New Year fireworks in Paris, with a deafening noise.

"Fucking hell," Cloutier yelled over the thunder, "That's the 5th! Has to be. We need to get back!"

This was fighting, Raoul realised, even as he instinctively ran from the hill down into the thick of the camp to find his regiment. Either his heartbeat had slowed or the rest of the world seemed to speed up; tents all around him were disgorging hundreds of angry soldiers, all beside themselves with nervous excitement, the camp like a beehive that had been kicked over.

"They're falling back this way!" a dragoon was shouting to another. "What the devil are we doing here if the Prussians are back there?"

"What's back there?"

"How the fuck should I know, some forest!"

"Lieutenant de Chagny!" an aide-de-camp with a stack of folders in his arms hailed Raoul. "You said you know this area?"

When Raoul confirmed it with a gesture, the aide motioned him forward urgently. "This way; the Emperor wants to talk to you."

Raoul had no time to consider his surprise as he followed at a run; the shells were rumbling and exploding, seemingly overhead. He fervently hoped he recalled enough about the terrain here to be of some use at headquarters. He tried to remember papers he had studied with his father, about the family holdings and about the provisioning for the war. Out the front of the squat farmhouse on the Carignan road where the Emperor was lodging, the aide-de-camp stopped.

"Wait here."

The explosions were so frequent now that they became a single roll of thunder that went on and on, reverberating around the hills and drowning out the noise of the camp. Raoul waited, growing anxious as minutes ticked by. High-ranking officers rushed in and out of the house purposefully; one of them shouted an order, but Raoul could not hear what it was, or see who it was addressed to. He cast his eyes around in the search of someone to question as to orders, or at the least to inform his captain that he was detained at headquarters, but it was no good; he was stuck in front of the door like a rock in mid-stream.

"Ah, Chagny. I thought it was you I had seen around the camp."

Raoul whipped around. The man who had spoken came down the porch stairs with difficulty, surrounded by officers. A servant was there at once, offering a campstool, but the Emperor motioned him aside. He leaned against the railings, hunched with pain, his face yellow and moist with the effort of fighting illness. It looked like he was losing.

"Your majesty," Raoul said, bowing. This was the first time Raoul had seen the Emperor this close since the ball in Pairs. The change the intervening three months had wrought in him was frightening. Something of his dismay must have shown in his face, because the Emperor gave him a terrible, pain-constricted smile:

"You are recalling the Tuileries, no doubt. A fine ball, but we have all changed a little since then, have we not? You, as I recall, made quite an impression with the little dancer."

Christine, Raoul thought. He is talking about Christine. The thunder of artillery fire seemed to be getting closer, but the Emperor went on in his creaky, pained way, oblivious, as though the talking kept him from other thoughts:

"The ladies talked of nothing else for weeks, you know, we were all putting bets on whether you'd marry her. I had ten gold louis on you myself, after I you did us the great honour of bringing her to the palace. I can't tell you how disappointed I was you didn't marry her after all. You cost me ten louis."

Raoul kept silent. He feared if he opened his mouth, he might say something that would be construed as treason. They had talked about him and Christine, he had always known it but it hadn't mattered because he would marry her – and he was a fool, because he should not care, least of all now. But he had never believed that invitation to the Tuileries was a high society joke, had refused to hear it when his parents had said as much. He had brought Christine there, before their filthy stares, and somebody had won their bet, and somebody else had lost...

Two shells exploded at the same time, a horrible parody of New Year's Eve.

"The battle, your majesty," Raoul said firmly. "It must be the 5th corps near Beaumont."

The Emperor winced in pain.

"Impossible," snapped one of the captains standing behind him, "Beaumont is ten leagues from there!"

The Emperor gave Raoul a long, heavy look, then turned to an aide-de-camp. "Show Lieutenant de Chagny to the map room."

o o o

Christine and Meg followed Madame Giry home in humiliated silence. Christine could not recall having ever seen Madame Giry so angry that she would not even look at them; she walked on ahead as though it did not even matter to her whether they followed. They did not catch the omnibus but walked on foot all the way home, a good hour through the crowded boulevards. Christine glanced at Meg; she still had the same stubborn expression with which she had met them outside the artist's studio. She clutched her paper-wrapped poster and stared straight in front of her, refusing to look at her mother's back. Passing the Gare Saint-Lazare, they almost lost sight of Madame Giry among all the passengers hurrying to and fro, peasants with bundles and furniture tied to carts, richly dressed Parisians hurrying so as not to miss the train from the city.

It was nearly dark by the time Madame Giry turned into their street. The streetlamps had been lit and the whole street glowed warmly against the deep blue of the sky. Laughing couples strolled by and two gentlemen stopped to greet one another, remarking on the fine weather.

"Tomorrow is the last day of summer," Christine said to Meg, as they walked past them. Madame Giry's heels clicked on the pavement ahead.

Meg looked up. Her eyes were red. "I would have told maman myself. I didn't need you to do it for me."

"I had no choice! You told me you'd be at Helena's and... Oh God" – Christine remembered – "Helena has been hurt."

Meg blinked, forgetting her own anger. "Hurt, how?"

"In the theatre. Your mother said it happened after we left; they called her to take Helena home. That's how she knew."

"Is she all right?"

"I don't know," Christine confessed. "Madame Giry didn't exactly give me time to ask."

Meg considered it, then much to Christine's surprise, ran forward to her mother. She caught Madame Giry's arm, making her stop.

"You could have told me about Helena."

Madame Giry looked from Meg to Christine, then said in a calm, quiet voice, "I would have certainly told you, had you been home. Helena Weiss is fine. Please remove your hand from my sleeve, Meg, you are making a scene."

Meg dropped her hand. They resumed walking, now side by side. "I should have told you about the modelling."

Madame Giry said nothing. The doors of their apartment building were just ahead. Christine thought with trepidation of the sort of supper they were about to have. Meg shifted her wrapped poster into her other hand.

"It's twelve francs a sitting, maman. All I do is put on my ballet things and stand there for an hour."

Madame Giry halted. She closed her eyes for a moment; when she opened them, all Christine could see was betrayal.

"If that's your way of looking at things, Meg, there are jobs in this city that pay more for less. In brothels."

Christine caught her breath. Meg's mouth worked, wordlessly, as Madame Giry went on. "I have taught you everything I could. And you take all you that know, all that you are, and sell it. Everything I have given you – for twelve francs an hour." Madame Giry's voice was so tight with pain it seemed expressionless. "Go upstairs, both of you."

Christine looked between Madame Giry and Meg. "What about you, Madame Giry?"

"I am going for a walk."

And she left them both there, staring after her back as she sliced a straight line past the pedestrians, with her shoulders erect and her steps light and precise, as though dancing on an injury at which the public would never guess.

"We should follow," said Meg, but Christine stopped her:

"Don't, Meg... Let's go upstairs."