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Trivia for this chapter: the London Illustrated News was an actual publication that printed reports with accompanying illustrations. However, their Paris correspondent left the city with the exodus of British citizens.
Chapter 52 — Le Bourget
"Maman, I wish you could be happy for me. It is a chance I may not have again, and the Illustrated News will pay well for every drawing that makes it to London."
Madame Giry took the freshly scrubbed stockpot from Meg's reddened hands, and dried it furiously on a dishtowel. If their dinners were plainer than ever, at least the kitchen was spotless, thanks in no small part to having so little with which to sully it. "I have already said you may do as you choose. But you must forgive me if I gain no joy from the prospect of you seeking out every unsavoury and dangerous happening in Paris, for no better reason than to sketch the wretched state of our city. If the papers pay well for such drawings, it is because there are few artists in this city foolish enough to risk themselves."
"But they are all risking themselves! Look, even Monsieur de Gas is in the National Guard, and so is Monsieur Hadol, and so many others."
"How many of them are girls not yet seventeen? No," Madame Giry stopped herself, "that is not the reason. Open that cupboard for me, please." She pushed the pot back into its place in the cupboard Meg held open, and let the door fall shut. "Were you twice your age and not a daughter but a son, I would still counsel against it." She saw the familiar obstinate set of Meg's jaw, and conceded ruefully, "And I know you would do it all the same."
"Thank you." Meg's face softened in relief. "It will not be very long, just until the siege ends. And it's thirty francs a drawing, maman. We need it. You know we can't go on as we are."
"We may not have to endure this much longer. You saw the guns being moved this morning; there must be a sortie planned, and soon." Madame Giry tried to infuse this with an optimism she could not feel. The taking of Le Bourget that for two days had driven all Paris wild with anticipation had still not produced anything more than a round of arguments about reinforcements. No news of a plan to break out in that direction, and no news of armies from the provinces reaching them in time to support such a sortie. Nothing, in fact, except more assurances that all good citizens were to stand fast and remain calm, and that the world was looking to Paris for its magnificent courage. It all had the air of panic about it, akin to the old placating calls for the audience to keep to their seats.
"Whatever happens," Meg said, "at least there will be no shortage of subjects. You know it is not just the unsavoury and dangerous that the News is after; it's our daily life they want. Queues and such."
Madame Giry huffed, "What they want is to see Paris brought to her knees. There is a brand of ugliness in the human soul that rejoices to see the mighty fallen. The English will look at your sketches and read the reports, and know they were right to condemn us as arrogant and frivolous, and deserving of our destruction. They use us well enough for our fashions and theatres, but now we are helpless, nothing keeps them from enjoying the spectacle of our misery."
Meg looked mortified, and too late Madame Giry thought she should have kept her bitter thoughts to herself. What was the use of burdening her young soul with such weariness? Poor Paris was like a diva fallen from favour, gleefully watched in her humiliation by all those who would never have dared speak a word against her at the height of her power.
"They can't be as bad as that… All those other countries. Wasn't there a government minister gone to negotiate with them?"
"Yes, Monsieur Thiers. He has returned, this morning I believe, empty-handed and talking only of surrender. Not a single court in Europe will come to our aid. And why should they help? We started this lunacy. To think of them in July, dancing on the boulevards," Madame Giry flourished a mocking arm, "À Berlin! Such foolishness. À Paris, now."
"Doesn't matter. We'll just have to save ourselves. Everyone is enlisting now, everyone who can." Meg wrung out her cloth, dried her hands and let her sleeves down again. Madame Giry felt her daughter's conviction as a warmth in her own heart. Would that conviction alone could be enough to change things… Meg held out her hands and Madame Giry helped to fasten her cuffs, more from habit than in answer to a genuine need: Meg did not really require her assistance in anything much these days, and she supposed they both knew it — but it was pleasant all the same to have their few small rituals.
Madame Giry pressed her knuckles into the small of her own back, rubbing muscles stiffened with disuse. "When do you start?"
"The next London despatch is two days from now, if they can get the balloon ready in time. I'll need two or three sketches by then, to send with the press reports. The balloonist can't take any more, because of the weight."
"You have plans then, for what you will draw?"
Meg looked uncomfortable. "I thought I would take a look at what's left of the Opéra. There is a vegetable market out the front now. It would make a good contrast." She got that determined look again, expecting an argument.
"Very well then." Madame Giry met Meg's surprise at such an easy victory with her own implacable stare, and waited until she was sure that Meg understood this was the point where negotiation ended. "You will go, but you will not go alone."
"All right. You are welcome to join me; only what about the shopping…"
"Christine and Monsieur Andersson will accompany you."
Meg's eyes widened, "What? No! Maman, no. What would be the use of the two of them standing around watching me work?"
"You may not need watching, but I am beginning to think it best if Christine and her suitor were not left too much to themselves. And it is no bad thing to take an architect with you if it is your intention to draw the ruin; it will give you better cause should your efforts be questioned."
Meg looked unhappy, but voiced no more objections. They collected the clean dishes and headed for the dining room, where the sideboard was. Meg crouched down to put the plates away and spoke without turning, seeming to address the shelves: "Do you think Christine is in some danger with him?"
Madame Giry sat down at the table, taking a moment to arrange her skirts. It was not a question she knew how to answer. "We are all in danger," she said finally, "There is a war."
"That isn't the same. You know what I mean." Meg sat on the floor like a child and hugged her knees, looking up to her. "You saw them at the hearing — he didn't even need to ask, she just sang for him. And he watches Christine's every move, have you noticed? It's unnerving."
"They are…" Madame Giry groped for words for what no words existed. What name could one give to the deep chasm of longing that had lurked in Christine's eyes ever since her father's passing, or the identical chasm, the same hunger, in the voice of another orphan? "Theirs is a long and strange history," was all she could bear to say on it, "and full of grief. Time will tell what comes of it."
"He frightened me at the hearing, with that voice — like the Phantom all over again. But Christine wasn't afraid, was she?" Meg rested her chin on her knees, thinking. "She is changing. She doesn't look quite so… haunted anymore. But he still looks a little mad. More than a little."
Madame Giry thought of the lit-up restaurant window, of the defiant intimacy she had inadvertently witnessed, and of the unfortunate pianist whose intrusion had led to their flight. Ballard had seen the madness between them, and not understood at all. But it was simple enough, when one did not imagine more than there truly was: they were not the first or the last to be young and in love. Perhaps they thought their casual touches and more-than-casual looks less obvious than they were, or perhaps they wanted the world to see them. Either way, the remarks in the Montmartre crowd had been ribald enough that they made the Opéra gossip about Christine and their patron seem the model of propriety.
"He is sane enough," she sighed, "and ought to know more discretion. I have perhaps allowed Christine too much liberty in this."
Meg stared so intently at a spot on the parquet that Madame Giry was at once convinced her daughter was privy to some confidences Christine had not shared with her. She decided to leave it for a better time, and only said mildly, "Try to get some rest, my dear. Read a book. I'm sure Christine will be home soon."
When hours later Christine did return, it was once again on the arm of her suitor, and this time their goodnight kiss, when they thought themselves alone, was full on the lips. Madame Giry retreated to her room as quietly as she could, saying nothing, and lay awake hour after hour, replaying in her mind's eye that worryingly confident kiss, and all the little moments that had come before. They had spent every daylight hour since the hearing in each other's company, whether at chores or at their music... Yes; it was undoubtedly best if they were not left unchaperoned. Perhaps her anxiety was as unfounded as the time he had first taken Christine to his cellar, or the time he had come to her room in this same apartment — but even so, it would do no harm to be cautious.
Sometime in the night, more artillery was moved through the nearby streets, with a deep rumble of wheels punctuated by calls between soldiers. There was something strangely comforting in worrying about a girl's courtship when tomorrow or the next day the siege of Paris might come to an end.
o o o
The address of Henri Guyon's apartment had proved a relatively simple matter to obtain, even if it did require a further two morning visits to corner the formidable lady in charge of the patients' whereabouts, and a most uncomfortable interview regarding the nature of their acquaintance with the Vicomte. Christine, angelic and imperturbable, with hands folded in her lap, was so much his childhood friend, almost sister, that even Erik's dubious presence did not form the obstacle he had expected: of course the address had to be provided to so loyal a friend, and the rash young officer was duly wished a full and speedy recovery. Mrs. Edmonds gave Christine's bandaged companion a last speculative look, wondering perhaps if he was not himself an escaped patient, but Erik only tipped his hat at her and steered Christine outside as quickly as he dared.
It took all the persuasive powers he could muster to keep Christine from rushing straight to the Vicomte's side without so much as a card to forewarn of their visit. The drizzle that had accompanied them these previous days at last grew to heavy rain, and by the time they were out of the ambulance Erik could only dread the prospect of spending the afternoon dripping over the polished parquet floors of some salon-turned-sickroom while being scrutinised by the Guyon fellow and all his kin. The ambulance had been bearable in its own way, and visiting the Vicomte there had been easy enough, but a fashionable apartment near the rue de Rivoli?
"We do not need to stay long," Christine insisted, huddling under her umbrella, "but I must see Raoul is all right, and his leg is not injured further. You heard what Doctor Swinburne said before." Her lips were purple with cold.
"What he said was that the Vicomte is in the care of his friend, whose own father is a doctor. There is no danger, Christine! Had he wanted to be followed directly, he would have left a note."
"I need to talk with him. And so do you."
"Not now." With his arm through Christine's elbow, Erik drew her nearer, sending a cascade of rainwater to fall back from her umbrella, and tucked a lock of wet hair behind her ear. "Send a note first; it is only polite."
"Polite!" She laughed, and made not the least attempt to remove herself from his decidedly impolite proximity, but instead put her other hand over his for a moment. "Perhaps you're right. He might not want to see me."
The sudden uncertainty in her tone broke Erik's will. "Christine…"
"I told him about our courtship. At the hearing."
There was nothing else she could have said that would have had such an effect on him: Erik felt his heart beat double time, and his limbs seemed to turn to rags. Christine was looking at him, a worry line between her eyebrows, quite unaware of having struck him mute.
"What is it?" she asked after another moment's silence.
Erik forced some approximation of speech from his mouth. "You told your — your Vicomte that we are engaged?"
A second worry line joined the first between Christine's brows, briefly; then as suddenly as it had come, the frown was gone, and she was as carefree as he had ever seen her.
"Let's go back to the theatre," she suggested, "I've had a few ideas that I would like to try out with you… Musical ideas," she added hastily.
"They'll spot us there and we'll have no peace. No," Erik hid her from the street with his umbrella and put his thumb to her lips, tracing the line between them, corner to corner. "But if you would like to visit the Angels' Garden again…"
She brightened, "Yes! Yes, Erik. I haven't been there in too long."
It was settled; they made their way on foot to the cemetery, past endless soldiers' tents and groups of mobiles at rifle drill, which seemed to drift through the downpour like so much scenery from a discarded production. The boulevards teemed with military life, but at the cemetery, all was still and mercifully unpeopled. Christine released his arm once they were inside and hurried onward, only turning once or twice to check that he followed.
Her father's tomb stood lonely and dark with rain under the bare leafless trees. The paths Erik still recalled as packed earth had dissolved into mud squelching beneath the relentless rainfall, and the steps up to the tomb churned with puddles. Christine dropped her umbrella and ran up those steps the moment she sighed them, heedless of her sodden shoes and skirts, and clung to the wrought iron gate of the crypt as though it was not a tomb but a prison cell that held her father. Erik watched her from the bottom of the steps, thinking only that he understood nothing of death.
There were other graves here that he recognised, Piangi's grey tomb among them. Carlotta was very much alive somewhere, and nothing and nobody could ever return her lover to her. Erik toed at a few pebbles, then giving up all pretense, bent down, scooped up a handful, and dropped them in a pile atop the wet stone: a futile, laughable gesture. The rain ran between the stones and over them, washing nothing away.
It was sometime later that Christine returned to him, frozen and so wet that he could not tell whether it was water or tears that coursed down her face. She smiled at him through it, and he could taste no salt when he kissed her cheeks. Her poor feet were mud to the ankle. He passed back her umbrella.
"You will catch cold." He felt a sudden stab of fear at the idea of her ill, an irrational echo of the accusing stones around them. "Come back to rue Fontenelle with me; you can get dry and warm. There is coal for the stove."
Christine gave him a long, searching look. Something in her eyes demanded honesty, more than he could speak, and he had to drop his hands and step back to a distance that was only fractionally more decorous. "There will be bread and a sort of soup Madame Gandon makes, of beets and barley and I know not what. It is edible; I have not died of it yet."
Christine touched her wet cheek, where he had kissed her. "I would like that," she said. "And more."
That more kept him flying through street after street, barely conscious of the rain and cold, seeing only Christine's form and feeling her steps fall in time with his own. In his room, a furious determination made him cover the keyhole and window and even slide a shirt across the slim space under the door, needing to know without shadow of doubt that they were alone, that Christine was his, and that nothing she did here could ever be whispered about by the crowd.
He wanted to take his time, to be mindful of her responses to what little he had learned of how to please her, but the dictates of his consciousness did not seem to have much force with the rest of his being. Christine peeled off his mask the moment they were inside, with impatience that demanded the same in return, and he could not stop anything. She was here again, in his own room, in his bed, naked and wide open and not the least bit interested in his shame or his ignorance. She led his hands to where they were needed and all that was left to him was the twin confusion and thrill of her body, and barely enough presence of mind not to prolong the torment into the abyss of release beyond which these stolen moments could endanger them both.
He raised himself above her on his elbows, floating upon her light. "Marry me, Christine."
"Not now," she said, and kissed him, soft and irresistible as rain.
He took her home much too late in the evening, and spent a dreamless night back in Montmartre, drifting through fragments of memories and peaceful, wordless hopes. Tomorrow he would see Christine again. His heart refused to be silent, and wrong though it was to indulge it, Erik let it sing. The music that came to him was sweet and dark and rich with promise, and he explored it until at length he found himself out of bed and scribbling a staff on a stray sheet of paper. He crumpled the page away at once and reached instead for the velvet pouch that held the ring Christine had given him. Returning to bed with it, he slipped the ring onto his little finger, and spent a long time watching the moonlight through the prism of its diamond.
He slept. When he awoke, there were heavy guns firing to the north, somewhere in the direction of Le Bourget.
o o o
"Chagny, what the devil are you reading!"
Henri Guyon burst into the sitting room in a state of extreme agitation and clapped Christine's storybook shut in Raoul's hands, then threw himself into a chair by the fire and flung at him a copy of Le Soir:
"Seen this?"
Metz surrender confirmed, Raoul read upside down. He made a grab for the paper before it could slide from his lap, turned it over and read the headline again, his heart sinking. There it was, black on white, exactly as the execrable Red paper had claimed not two days ago. The besieged city of Metz had been surrendered to the Prussians with provisions still remaining, and an entire army penned up within, 150,000 men. The type was still fresh; all Paris must be reading this right now.
Raoul wheeled his chair around to face Guyon. "How can this be? Jules Favre swore yesterday was nothing but a Red slander, designed to whip up unrest. There was even a warrant out for Pyat's arrest, for printing treason!" He thumbed the paper open and glanced at the article. "But it is all true. They have Metz."
Guyon shrugged elaborately, angrily, and Raoul saw he carried a paper file with stamps too official to be in his possession. A sheet that slipped to the floor bore the letterhead of Governor Trochu's own office.
Raoul frowned. "What are you doing with those?"
"Seeing the truth for myself. Uncle won't miss them for an hour to two while he's at the billiards." Guyon upended the file and a snowfall of documents flurried out over the rug, a few narrowly missing the fireplace grate. "And it is true, every word of it. Even that swine Rochefort denied it yesterday, as though we wouldn't find out." He tossed the empty file on top of the papers, and gave it a kick with the toe of one polished boot, half-heartedly aiming it at the fire.
Raoul moved his wheelchair back a little, unwilling to peruse classified documents. "They will have to admit that they knew all along. And the Reds—"
Guyon snorted, "The Reds will have a field day. The entire government knew of it, days ago, and they simply lied. Not even elegant lies. Just think what they will do tonight in Belleville. And not only there."
A discreet rap on the door interrupted them. Maurice, Guyon's man, leaned his balding head around the door. "Another paper, monsieur."
"Let's have it," Guyon motioned for him to come in, tiredly. "What a complete cock-up…"
His expression froze when he saw the front page. Raoul saw from the corner of his eye as Maurice made a hasty retreat, and quietly shut the door behind him.
"Well?" he prompted, when Guyon still had not moved.
Guyon reversed the paper to permit Raoul to read it. Prussian assault on Le Bourget. Tactical retreat made in good order.
A wave of nausea swept over Raoul, but he could not seem to stop reading. Morbid fascination made him appreciate the cautious phrases and political optimism of the piece, even as he recognised in all that trite phraseology the news of a spectacular, terrible reversal. The last line made him curse aloud: "The Le Bourget position, taken by General de Bellemare on his own initiative, was of no tactical value and forms no part of General Trochu's plan."
Raoul looked up. Guyon was sitting bolt upright in the armchair, staring at the paper in a kind of elegant stupor. "No tactical value," he echoed the report, "but 1200 of our men dead or captured, with cannon, and the village lost. They never sent the reinforcements Bellemare asked for. No tactical value!"
"It's over," Raoul said, "they're finished. Trochu and his 'plan', Jules Favre, all of them."
Guyon bolted from the chair and threw the paper into the fire, where it whooshed at once into flames. Then he turned and, thrusting his hands into his pockets, proclaimed solemnly, "Screw Trochu and his plan. Chagny, we need wine. A lot of wine. There's going to be a revolution."