Chapter Eight

Meg.

I woke slowly the next morning, after a night's sleep deeper than I had experienced in a long time. How long had it been since I had not slept alone? Three years. Three years since Benedict Adair, the love of my life, had died. It had felt wonderful to share my bed and my body with a man the previous night, although I had never imaged Erik Danton as my bedfellow. There was too much history between us, the relationship too unequal for us to be lovers. His hands and feet had been cool, but his body had been warm, his lithe frame lightly muscled, his weight a warm comfort against mine.

I had allowed myself to simply feel, and believed that he had done the same. He had had the good sense to pull out before he climaxed, unlike most of the men I had serviced while working at de Tourney's brothel. There had been a name on his lips when he reached his peak, and I was under no illusions that it was mine.

As I rose into consciousness, I felt the warm aches in my body, its soft hum of satisfaction alien after such a long time as I am not one to indulge in self-abuse. I was on my side facing the window, where white light crept through the gap in the curtains, with the shine of the sun reflecting off freshly fallen snow. Brooklyn would look like a holiday card this morning, four weeks late for Christmas. The sheets and blankets were around my waist and my back was pressed against Erik's front, his left arm across my body at the breast. As I watched the light glinting off the black stone in the ring he wore on his fourth finger, I wondered if this was the only intimacy I would experience in 1901. Erik's breathing was slow behind me, and his long fingers twitched. I found my attention fixed on the ring; Erik had worn it on his right hand when I knew him at the Paris Opera House. He had forced it on Christine's finger in the mockery of an engagement ring when he had determined to take her as his wife. She had returned it to him when he had realised that she loved Raoul de Chagny, and withdrawn his self-made claim on her. When we had moved to Normandy, Erik had switched the ring from his right hand to his left, part of an act that he was my mother's husband. He must have become used to it, because it remained on his left ring finger. I ran my thumb over the black stone, and heard the pattern of Erik's breathing change as he woke.

"Good morning," I murmured.

"Good morning," he returned, his voice heavy with drowsiness.

"This ring… Where did you get this ring?"

There was a pause, then: "Actually it was given to me by your father."

"What?" I started to turn to him, but in an instant, Erik's hand was on my upper back, pinning me in place, preventing me from looking round.

"Don't!" His voice rang with alarm.

"What's wrong?" My own alarm sent my heart pounding.

"I don't want you to see me like this," the pressure against my back relaxed. For a moment I could not imagine what he meant; after all, I had seen him naked before. But then I realised that it was the lack of mask that he was shielding me from, that he did not want me to see his disfigurement. This was also something that I had seen before, but I did not think that I could ever look upon Erik's unmasked face without recoiling. His deformity fascinated and disgusted me in equal measure because a human being should not look like that., and that made me no better than those who had paid to see his visage, to gasp at and mock him. For that reason, I lay facing away from my companion, my whole body growing hot with same, listening as he put on his mask, wig and nightshirt. He gently squeezed my shoulder after a minute or two, and I sat up, turning to face him. Somewhat to my amusement, he averted his eyes from the breasts he had paid such tender attention to the night before, and held my nightgown out to me. I pulled it on and swung my legs out of bed.

"Coffee," I told him. "I need coffee."

I worried that Erik might be cold as I pulled on a dressing gown over my nightgown, but if he noticed the cold he did not seem bothered by it. Once we were both seating on the sofa before the freshly roaring fire, nursing cups of coffee without milk or sugar, I reminded him of our conversation.

"Your ring. You said that my father gave it to you."

"He did indeed. It once belonged to Claude Giry, and he gave it to me as a token of his thanks."

"His thanks for what?"

"For the safe delivery of his daughter."

I gazed at the ring, a black stone in a silver band, not dissimilar to a signet ring.

"What is the stone?" My voice sounded thick with emotion, even though my father had been dead for more than a decade.

"An onyx. I did not want to accept it, but Giry insisted that I take it, after what I had done for you and your mother. And so, I have worn it ever since."

Why was it that so many things around Erik seemed to have a connection to my poor father? Back in Paris, Erik had favoured a cologne that he had also worn, and catching that scent six years after the man I associated with it had died, had driven memories through me with the force of a dagger.

"I suppose that by rights it is yours," Erik continued. "Do you want it?"

"No, no. Papa gave it to you, and it has been in your possession for more than twenty years. I would not dream of taking it from you."

Erik had taken on the role of my father once, providing me with food, shelter, and exerting his authority to the point where my disobedience had resulted in him beating me so severely that I had a scar on my back to remember it by. Another reason why I could not consider a romantic relationship with him; Benedict had never raised his hand to me.

I noticed that Erik's right leg was bouncing, subtly but fast, as though the caffeine from the coffee was draining directly into that one limb. He was nervous, I realised, and was about to ask him why when he spoke himself.

"I hurt you."

"I beg your pardon?" Was he remembering that awful beating, as I was?

"I—I have bruised you. I saw the marks on your skin. Forgive me, I did not mean to be rough." He put the cup down and stood, starting to pace with his hands behind his back as though that nervous energy could no longer be contained in one leg. Despite his agitation he looked tall and elegant, even when clad in nothing but a nightshirt.

"I think I gave as good as I got," I murmured as I looked at my fingertips. "I have blood under my nails. Pardon my scratching you."

"Meg, I… I feel that I have taken advantage of you. You were upset last night and you are grieving. I am your employer and your landlord. It was wrong of me to become carried away as I did. Please be assured that it will never happen again."

I drank the last of my coffee and set the cup down.

"You do not owe me an apology, Erik. You did not take advantage of me, and you did not force me. It was I who invited you into my bed. For that one night, I needed the comfort of a lover, which you provided. Quite satisfactorily, I assure you. I am no china ornament that will break with rough handling. Kittens have claws and roses have thorns. But yes, you are right. However enjoyable the experience was, it should not be repeated. What would my colleagues say if they knew I was sleeping with the boss?"

Erik was blushing, I saw with amusement, the faintest colour tinting his visible cheek. "Then we are agreed?"

"We are agreed."

For the rest of the world, that was the morning that they learned that England's Queen Victoria had died. For Erik and I, it was the morning we knew that I could never be to him what he had wanted from Christine Daaé.

I knew that grief was a personal thing, with everyone processing it in their own way, despite the rules of etiquette surrounding this most human of emotions. What I could not understand was the outpouring of mourning over the death of a woman who the mourners had never met, who was a foreigner, a monarch, and the head of an empire that the United States had fought to break away from. Queen Victoria's passing raised a stir in New York that made me feel more distanced from the rest of the population than ever. Maybe it was because I was French; my countrymen have a rather terminal attitude towards royalty, a remembrance of two centuries earlier.

Members of the public wore black armbands and the newspapers seemed full of nothing else. I gave up reading them and put all my energy into my work, sure that the harder I worked, the quicker the ice box surrounding my emotions would melt. There were nights when the reality of Mother's death made me cry myself to sleep, but other feelings were unavailable to me. Numbness filled me behind my leading lady smile, and criticism slid off me like water off a duck's back.

"I think that Grace is getting annoyed with you," Lucy murmured to me during a break in rehearsals. I just shrugged. "Don't you care? It's an important number, and Grace scares me."

"Everyone scares you," I answered mildly. "Grace knows I will catch up, sooner or later."

Comparing Grace Gibson, choreographer of the Imaginarium with Madame Giry, ballet mistress of the Paris Opera House, was like comparing a domestic kitten with an African lioness.

Likewise, praise also bounced off me. I was bored as I sang scales for Erik, knowing that they were necessary to warm up the voice, but dull even so. My vocal chords were straining at the high end of the scale when my teacher raised a hand to stop me.

"Well done."

"What?" I refocused my attention on him, suddenly aware that I had been daydreaming.

"You just sang from a low G three to a high E six," he played the two notes on the piano and I was surprised by the range. "You could not have managed that when you become my leading lady two years ago. So congratulations are in order."

"Oh," I let my shoulders rise and fall in a shrug. "The achievement is yours, not mine. It is thanks to you."

"With more time I will have you spanning four octaves," he was joking but I just shrugged again. "It allows me to work on some new songs for you."

"Always new songs."

"You would prefer new dances?"

"I am a ballerina," I reminded him. "I would like the opportunity to showcase it."

"You do."

"My one ballet solo is hardly a showcase."

"You are lucky to have even that," Erik rubbed the back of his neck. "You know what we are, Meg; vaudeville entertainment, not the Metropolitan Opera House, for all our roots in that field. But your increased vocal range certainly gives me the opportunity to work on an aria or two that I have had in mind."

I nodded without interest, vaguely wondering if it was possible for a human voice to span four octaves.

The numbers that were performed as part of a single show were amended every six weeks or so, depending on the season. Erik had placed employees in the auditorium of the concert hall since the Imaginarium had opened, making notes of the audience's reaction to the performance, and which numbers they enjoyed, or chose to spend visiting the restrooms or the bar. I knew that Mother had fought to keep my ballet solo—a piece from Swan Lake—as part of the show, but did not know if that was because the dance was unappreciated by the audience, or if Erik did not like that its composer was Tchaikovsky, rather than himself. It was feasible that it was only part of the upcoming Spring season because Erik wanted to honour Mother, and could not bring himself to remove it.

I took a piece of paper and wrote 'E is writing an aria for you', then stuck it into the corner of my dressing room mirror, where the looking glass met the frame. I put it there to remind myself of the positives in my life, hoping that it would jolt some feeling in me.

I wanted to feel. Feel proud that I was a leading lady and still, at least for one number, a prima ballerina, as Mother had wanted me to be. I wanted to feel flattered, or even lustful, as Thomas Seymour showered me with compliments and flirted when we met. He was not the only investor to visit the Imaginarium, but was the one who made a point of talking with myself, Erik and the other performers. He was invested in more than monetary terms, I was sure. Or maybe he was still investing in de Tourney's, or any other establishment in New York State; it was none of my business.

I felt nothing.

"You are starting to annoy me, young lady." Erik's tone was dangerous as we stood together in his office. It was a space that I rarely saw, but which awed me. It stretched the entire length of the concert hall with the external wall being almost entirely windows. Looking through those windows, one could see the entirety of the Imaginarium and much of Coney Island beyond. From up here, Erik could oversee the whole of his domain, like a fairy tale king gazing out over his lands. Thanks to Coney Island being what the Native Americans had once called the Land With No Shadows, the huge office was filled with light from dawn to dusk. The available wall space was covered with sketches and blueprints as Erik constantly produced new ideas, and much of the décor from his previous homes had found their way here. The little carriage clock that had lived on the mantelpiece in Erik's subterranean Paris abode was now on this new mantelpiece. Likewise, the Persian rug decorated a small area of floor, and the divan from Erik's tent stood in one corner. I wondered if Erik ever slept here. A grand piano, the twin of the one he had once owned in Paris, had pride of place in the centre of the office, and I could not begin to imagine how it had found its way all the way up here, just as I could not imagine how the previous one had made it across an underground lake and through the hidden passageways of the Opera House.

We would normally be in one of the Imaginarium's rehearsal rooms, but this first Monday in February, Erik had come down hard on his staff. I knew why; the Winter season was finally drawing to a close, with the Spring season bringing a new series of aerobatics, acrobatics, dances, songs, illusions and parades across the stage of the Imaginarium's most extraordinary individuals.

"What have I done to annoy you now?" I wondered. Erik stood up from the piano stool and strolled over to the fireplace to pour us both coffee.

"It's what you haven't done. We have been here for an hour, and I am not convinced that you even looked at this song at all this week."

I looked down at the sheet music in my hands, trying not to blush and betray my guilt. I had meant to spend a good portion of my supposedly free time on this piece the previous week, but when it came to it, I just felt too tired for the task.

"I've had a difficult week," I mumbled.

"I never pushed you to return to this, I would have kept Helen on in your place."

"I'm not blaming you, I am just saying that my attention has been split over the past few days."

Despite his obvious annoyance, Erik passed me a cup of coffee and sighed deeply. "Oh, Meg Giry, what am I going to do with you?"

"Be patient with me?" I suggested.

"I have been patient, but time marches on. You are supposed to be performing this song in only five weeks' time, I have written it specifically to display your talents as my leading lady, and it will not bode well for us if you cannot show Mr Thurlestone our best work in only a few weeks' time."

"Mr Thurlestone?" My eyes widened and my cup halted an inch from my chapped lips. "Arthur Thurlestone?"

Arthur Thurlestone was one of the best-known producers of theatre and opera in New York, having started his career as a composer, much as Erik had. If he decided to invest in the Imaginarium, Erik's success would be catapulted into the stratosphere. Even if he didn't, if I could impress Thurlestone, then maybe I could use him to return to the opera, where I felt most at home. Maybe I could take my place as prima ballerina in one of his theatres, as Mother had always wanted. As I had always wanted.

"Yes, Arthur Thurlestone," Erik sounded exasperated.

"He's coming here?"

"Of course not," he was staring at me as though I had lost my senses. "We are going to his new theatre, The Fields, on March thirteenth. You already know this, Meg, why am I repeating it?"

"This is the first I have heard of it."

"No, it isn't. I put the invitation in your pigeonhole before Christmas."

"I must have overlooked it. My pigeonhole has been somewhat stuffed since… since November."

Mother's death had touched more people than I knew, and my pigeonhole—my little cubby in the lobby of the Grand Circle apartment block—had been overwhelmed with letters and cards of condolence. I had myself been overwhelmed, and had given up reading my mail. There were at least a dozen unopened envelopes dating back to November sitting in a wobbly pile on top of my bookcase. Erik's voice interrupted my thoughts.

"We talked about it when I gave you this sheet music ten days ago."

I blinked at him, with no idea what he was talking about.

"No, you didn't."

"Yes, I did. Why else would you be holding it right now?" His eyes, one blue and one green, had not left my face since he had given me the hot beverage. He reached out and pressed his index finger right in the centre of my brow. "What is going on in that head of yours, girl?"

I drew back, shaking my head.

"I don't know. I must have missed the invitation and I don't remember you saying anything about Mr Thurlestone. I thought this was a new number for the Spring season."

"We had a forty-minute conversation about Mr Thurlestone and his new theatre," Erik's expression had turned from frustrated to concerned. "How can you not remember?"

"I don't know," I put my coffee cup down on top of the piano and pinched the bridge of my nose to stall an oncoming headache. "I seem to be having trouble remembering things at the moment."

"Hmm." Erik gave me a sideways look that I did not like in the least. "Well, you know now. Write the date on the top of your music sheet—March thirteenth. And for goodness sake, girl, pull yourself together. This could be a huge opportunity for us."

Blood drummed in my ears to the tempo of Erik's song as he played it through for me. It was a very clever piece, part operatic aria and part comedic tune. It displayed my increased vocal range almost to its limits, but the lyrics were humorous. It was as if vaudeville was mocking opera, but no doubt Erik knew best. He would rather be writing operas in the vein of Mozart, the same way I would rather be dancing like Emma Livry; but in all paths of life one must start at the bottom, and in the world of freak shows, Erik and I had already climbed high. The idea of performing for Arthur Thurlestone burned as a candle of hope in my chest.

When Erik and I entered the foyer of The Fields, Arthur Thurlestone's new theatre on the island of Manhattan, I wished that I had swallowed my pride and purchased a new evening gown. The building was stupendous, and so modern that it made the Imaginarium look like it belonged in the Colonial period. Even in the foyer there were chandeliers, marble pillars and pale walls, red drapes and gold filigree, and from seeming every available patch of wall, a mirror. It was a trick, I knew, to reflect the bright electric lights and made the space seem larger than it was, but at once I felt Erik bristle in discomfort at my side.

I had not been inside his apartment in the Grand Circle, but the only mirror I had seen him use before was a small one meant for shaving. Otherwise, he had used mirrors as part of his torture chamber; he did not like being confronted with his own reflection, even when wearing his mask. Just as I finished the thought, Erik leant down to me.

"Be a dear and find the photographers, there's a good girl. Make it known that we are here. I am going to locate the stage manager and find out when you will be needed for your performance. Then I'm going to the bar, since our host is indulging our gluttony this evening."

"He can afford it," I murmured in return, knowing that aside from being an impresario, Thurlestone had a foot in the very profitable tobacco industry. "I'll have champagne, please."

"You'll have sparkling water. Alcohol is reserved for after your performance."

It was still early in the evening, but the journalists of the New York papers and their accompanying photographers were nevertheless hard at work in one area of the foyer, where they milled over two metres of plush carpeting like penned sheep. As I watched a golden-haired goddess posing for a photograph, I was suddenly visited by a scene from the novel I had been reading the evening before. I had been given a copy of Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre for Christmas when I was a child, an abridged copy intended to help me learn English. Foreign languages had been a priority to my parents, and I had only a vague notion of the story. Since Erik's thorough and somewhat brutal training in the English language and the fact that for the last six years I had used it more than my native French, I had been able to read the entire novel as the author had intended.

There was a scene in Jane Eyre where the plain, poor governess Jane was present at a social event with the friends of her employer, Mr Rochester, including the beautiful and accomplished Blanche Ingram. Blanche as a name confused me for several pages as it is the French word for 'white', but what really hit me were Jane's emotions as she sat in a corner at the party. Her feeling of inferiority was echoed by mine. The women before me were so fashionable and stylish that I felt like a poor country cousin, a decade behind the current trends, and as penniless as a church mouse. Nevertheless, I sparkled for the photographers—thankful that I only had to hold the pose for ten seconds rather than the near two-minutes of a few years previously—and told the journalists very clearly that I was the leading lady of the Imaginarium on Coney Island, and that I would be performing this very night for Arthur Thurlestone.

I had tried to emulate the current fashions with a magazine pattern, my mediocre sewing skills and a zero budget, and I had failed. My dress was off-the-shoulder, black, with beading decorating the neckline, and a train which was long enough to count as fashionable, but short enough that I would not trip on it when I turned around.

My original idea had been to use fabric from Mother's array of black gowns, in a range of materials from cotton to silk. With the date of March thirteenth firmly in my mind and Erik's surprisingly gentle prodding, I had begun the slow process of clearing out Mother's apartment, starting with her clothes. I had been halfway through unpicking Mother's first silk gown when I myself had fallen apart, and Lucy had held me as I had wept for my loss, the pain as sharp as if the death was fresh.

Lucy had offered to buy, or at least contribute towards, an evening gown for my performance at The Fields, but I had protested that my finances, even assisted, could not manage it. Instead, we had taken the train into Manhattan, and purchased the required haberdashery supplies. Lucy had helped me sew the dress, and the jet beads that decorated it had been taken from pieces of Mother's jewellery. She had leant me a diamond necklace and pair or earrings, which glittered like stars when the light hit them. I had felt like a dark princess when I had looked at my begowned and bejewelled reflection in Lucy's full-length mirror, but now I felt like a peasant.

Erik was also nervous, I knew, although whether that was because he lacked esteem in his masked appearance, or in my performance as the Imaginarium's leading lady, I was not certain. Either way, I had waited outside his apartment as he changed his waistcoat three times, eventually settling on one of dark green silk shot with blue shimmers, when I moaned at him that we were going to miss our train.

I squared my shoulders through the sparkle as the journalist conducted a short interview for his paper, and decided to adopt my own mask, as I escaped and Erik placed a champagne flute of water in my hand.

"That is Mr Spencer, the short man over there with the glasses."

"Everyone is short compared to you."

"He will come and get you when he is ready to show you where you will be performing. In the meantime," he clinked his glass of red wine against my champagne flute. "Cheers."

"Cheers."

The women around us, in their to-the-moment fashionable dresses, were the wives of Thurlestone's guests and investors, most of them intent on giving a rich man more money. What did they know of work? They were not of working class, being so far above it, and I was far below. In Jane Eyre, Mr Rochester had had a child with an actress, like me, little more than a whore. I was as much deserving of respect as these well-dressed women.

"You are daydreaming again," Erik observed mildly, flicking a fingernail against my champagne flute to get my attention. "And I think you are wanted."

He nodded to where Mr Spencer was making his way through the foyer towards her. I swallowed the rest of my water and allowed the little man to lead myself and several other men and women who would be performing on the new stage, to the door separating the front of house and backstage areas. Backstage, the theatre looked exactly the same as the Imaginarium, apart from the lighting being electric rather than gas. The performers would simply stand on the stage, the only accompaniment to their songs was the single upright piano, situated downstage right. The stage itself was much smaller than I had expected, perhaps a third smaller than that of the Imaginarium's concert hall. The auditorium was smaller too, and curved, stretching out and up like an amphitheatre. It felt more intimate, and perhaps the audience would feel that intimacy in their proximity to the performers on this stage.

I returned to the foyer, and saw her at once, across the crowded foyer as she entered the theatre, lowering the hood of her cloak. It was the hair I noticed first, a beautiful up-do with a single glossy brown curl tumbling over her left shoulder. Then her sparkling blue eyes and a stunning smile as she passed her full-length cloak to one of Thurlestone's employees.

There, in the foyer of The Fields, was my oldest friend, Christine Daaé.