Chapter Twenty-One

Erik

"So now you know," Meg mumbled. "You know everything?"

"I know about Granjin. I know about the brothel. I know about Seymour. Were there others, Meg, that I should know about?"

We were speaking in French, but still had no desire for this conversation to be in public. In search of privacy, we had settled in the new music room at Kirkbride, another wood-panelled space on the ground floor with large windows and colourful rugs on the parquet. The sunshine that filled it had no impact on the chill between its occupants as we sat facing each other in the middle of the room on a pair of wooden chairs.

"I suppose it is pointless to try and conceal it from you now." There were tears on Meg's cheeks, but she was not sobbing uncontrollably or reacting in any way I could have imagined; her voice was relatively steady, and laden with weariness. "Of course there were others."

"When? All this time?"

"No. Only in the beginning, and none since I met Benedict."

"For how long, then? And how many? And who? More of my investors?"

"It doesn't matter."

"It does matter!" I could sit for no longer and began to pace the room, clasping my hands tightly behind my back so that I would not give into the urge to break something. "Why, in the name of the devil, did you do this?! What possessed you?!"

Meg wiped her eyes and watched me as I circled the room. "You did."

I stopped. "What? You are talking gibberish."

"You wanted to make a life in America. You wanted to start a travelling fair. Mother wanted to support you, and I had to support her. So I gave my virginity to Granjin so that he would free us, and I whored myself in Brooklyn to pay off my hospital debt, and so that you could get the money you needed to start the Imaginarium. And when we were first travelling around the country, I gave the occasional… preferential attention to a journalist, or someone who wasn't sure that he wanted carnies setting up on his land. You would be amazed how powerful fellatio is."

I whirled to face her. "For the love of God, you sound proud of what you did!"

I realised my mistake the moment I saw her expression.

"Proud? I was ashamed, Erik! Deeply, mortally ashamed! Do you think a woman wants to debase herself like that? Do you think I was so immoral that I was waving my sexuality like a goddamn flag?"

I took a deep breath and returned to my chair opposite Meg. Her appearance had changed again in the short time since I had last seen her, the swell of her pregnancy becoming more pronounced, her hollowed cheeks filling out. Even so, her dark eyes were still deeply troubled and her skin was still the pallid shade of someone enduring illness.

"Very well, let me ask this another way. I understand about Granjin. God help me, but I do. I may not approve of your actions, but I do understand them. Now, you entered this brothel after the accident because your hours had been reduced by your foreman, is that right?"

"Yes, Mr Sheridan. He said he had found another girl to replace me but that I could still take the morning shift. He gave me until that afternoon to decide what to do."

I closed my eyes, counted to five, and opened them again. "And why did you not decide to say yes to this morning shift, return home, and explain to your mother and myself what had happened?"

She stared at me in silence.

"Well, Meg? Why did you hide your change in circumstances from us? Why did you think the best idea was to go straight to prostitution?! For Christ's sake!"

I clenched my fists on my knees. Meg shook her head.

"It was all my fault."

"What was?"

"Everything was. I was the one who was hospitalised, who cost us all that money. I was the one who lost those working hours. And you and Mother had your noses so close to the grindstone your skin was flaying off, I could see it. It was my responsibility to do something about it, to find a solution."

I swallowed and shook my head in disbelief.

"Meg, you were attacked, through no fault of your own, and you were barely eighteen years old. I know you don't like to hear it, but legally, you were a child. It was not your responsibility to pay your medical bills, it was mine. Did you not think I was doing so? Oh, Meg, why didn't you just come to me?"

She twisted her fingers together in her lap.

"You were so angry," she almost whispered it. "You were so angry, all the time, and I was afraid of how you would react when you found out I had half-lost my job. I thought it would be better all-around if I resolved the situation by myself. I thought it was the adult decision."

I could feel my throat tightening and my eyes prickling. I wanted to bury my face in my hands and weep.

"You could have confided in your mother."

"She would only have told you."

I reached out and took her hands. "Meg, I'm sorry. I'm truly sorry that you felt the need to take this upon yourself and that it resulted in such immorality."

"So now you know," she repeated, her jaw tightening and her eyes glistening again. "How are you going to punish me?"

"Punish you?" I sat back, astonished. "Punish? Meg, do you really believe, after all this time, that I would do such a thing?"

She shrugged. "You would have done, at the time. You would have beaten me black and blue if you knew what I was doing."

I sighed, fighting against the truth. "You have suffered, and Lockwood thinks that that suffering is partially responsible for your attempt on your life. That is punishment enough. Meg, you and I have both changed over the years, I believe for the better. I have no desire to inflict further suffering on you because you did what you truly felt was right. I am not that man anymore. Do you believe me?"

She looked at me for a long time, her dark eyes searching mine.

"I believe you," she nodded.

"Forgive me."

"What for?"

"For the part I played in the events that brought you here, however unknowingly. Perhaps if I had been more aware of what was going on around me, you would not have felt the need to hide things from me."

She shook her head, looking astonished. "I don't know what there is to forgive. You were trying to make a life here in America, for all of us. You were working yourself to exhaustion to get your schemes off the ground. If it hadn't been for you, I would never have met Benedict. I would never have become your leading lady." She sighed, and looked away from me. "I suppose that is over now. Will you keep Helen Roylott on, do you think, or will you choose someone else?"

"What do you mean?"

"Now that you know the truth. You can't have a whore as your leading lady, whatever will people think?"

"I can have as my leading lady whomever I choose. No-one else needs to know of your… temporary occupation."

She looked back at me, confusion bright on her face. "But Mr Seymour—"

"He never spoke of it to anyone. I think that on some level he is as ashamed of visiting prostitutes as you are of being one."

"I find that hard to believe."

"Do you want people to know?"

"Of course not."

"Nor do I. And so we will never speak of it again, unless it is deemed necessary. That chapter of your life is closed."

Meg lowered her head, looking as though weariness had dropped onto her shoulders like a leaden blanket.

"How can you be such a man of the world, Erik Danton, and have so little idea of how it works?"

"Your meaning?"

"I will be an unmarried mother. That changes everything."

"Motherhood changes everything, of course, but your state of wedlock does not mean the end of your world, or your career."

"You can't say that. You can't have a leading lady with a bastard child, it will bring ruin to your name and your business."

"I would have agreed with you, perhaps, when I was trying to become a gentleman in the New York elite," I reached out and very gently lifted her chin with a finger so that our eyes met. "I should have known then that my face would always prohibit that. Meg, the Imaginarium and everyone in it exists on the outskirts of society. We are not accepted by anyone but our own, and that works for us well enough. Your colleagues know that you are expecting a child, and they know that I am the father."

She swallowed, her eyes brimming again.

"And they don't mind?"

"Most have known us for long enough to be aware that I am not one for nepotism. My reputation is sound, Meg, and as for yours… well, no one expects someone in your position to be a fresh as new fallen snow."

"Meaning that they think that I am a whore anyway."

"Meaning that they do not care about your personal circumstances. And when the subject does come up to the public, as it cannot fail to do once the child is born, we can think of something to say then."

"Like what, that we are secretly married?"

"Do you wish to marry?"

"No!" She looked horrified at the question. "Married? Me, marry you? I never—I don't—Me and Benedict, I-!"

"Please calm yourself," I raised a placating hand. "I have no wish to marry you either. You do not love me, do you?"

She bit her lip, and I could sense her picking her words, wary of causing offence. "My feelings towards you are not those of a woman towards a future husband, no."

"And mine towards you are not those of a man towards a future wife. Life has not been kind to us. I cannot have the wife that I desire, and you cannot have the husband that you deserve. But together we have created a new life, and we must do our best by it."

Meg gazed at me, as though a thousand words were whirling through her mind.

"You are so changed," she said at last. "Where is the man who pinned me to a stage when I was sixteen and threatened to strangle me? Where is the man who considered ejecting Benedict and I from the Imaginarium when he discovered that we were lovers, and threatened us with a sound thrashing?"

I rose to my feet and turned away from her, pondering what to say as I began to walk, trailing my fingertips over the second-hand instruments.

"He still exists," I admitted. "I believe that he always will, but perhaps he is not needed anymore." I opened the freestanding piano and ran my fingers over the keys, picking out the notes D, F, A. "Christine Daaé showed me that I did not need to live in the dark anymore. You and Antoinette taught me that I need not be alone. I had trouble, for years, trying to find my place in this new, light world. Not to be the Phantom of the Opera, or the Angel of Music. Just to be Erik. When we were in France, I can admit, I wanted a family. I wanted to be the head of a household, like any other man of means, and I wanted the respect and obedience that comes with that. Perhaps I was overly harsh with you, I don't know, but you tried my patience to the breaking point, you truly did."

Meg gnawed at her thumbnail. "I think that maybe I misunderstood the seriousness of our situation. I felt like you were stealing us away and making us yours, because you couldn't have Christine. I felt like you were wiping my father out of my life so that you could have a ready-made wife and daughter."

I sighed. "You would have been arrested if you had stayed in Paris, I am almost certain of that. Charged with aiding and abetting a murderer, most likely."

She nodded. "That's what de Chagny told me, to make me agree to sleep with him. That Mother would be executed by guillotine and that I would be thrown into a lunatic asylum." She let out a noise that was half a laugh and half a sob. "How my circle has come around."

"Please don't say that. I took you with me because I wanted to protect you both. Because I was tired of living alone, because I needed you. But thereupon is another matter on which I must ask your forgiveness."

"Mmm?"

"Phillippe de Chagny. You told me what he was going to do to you, and I should have handled the situation myself. I am sorry that I did not."

"Oh, Erik," there were tears on her cheeks again. "What use is 'sorry' now?"

"Then you cannot forgive me?"

"Yes, I forgive you, you had your own concerns. You had no reason to think of me."

"No reason?" I swept back to her and leant down, cupping her face in my cold hands. "The girl I delivered, who I saw as much mine as her mother's, and I had 'no reason' to save her from a predator?"

I straightened up as she pulled away gently.

"But I am not yours, Erik," the words were gentle in spite of her tears. "I am a person, and not a piece of property for you to claim ownership of."

"A fact I came to too late." I resumed my seat. "I saw you, for so long, as a little girl. A child that I was supposed to guide and guard because there was no-one else to do so. When I caught you and Benedict together, when you told me that you were in love, I was… shocked, I must admit."

"You were furious."

"And I believed my feelings were justified. Meg, if you had only confided in me, I would have spared you from pain. Did you believe that because I had forgotten about de Chagny, I would have willingly allowed you to sacrifice yourself to men like Granjin and that—that brothel owner?"

"I don't know." She shook her head. "I hate talking about it, Erik. Lockwood forces me to for the good of my mind, or my soul, or whatever it is that he is trying to save. Now that you know please don't make me speak of it further, I beg you."

"We will need to speak of it sometime."

"But not now."

"Not now," I agreed. "I do not relish causing you distress."

"And you truly mean it, that I can still be the Imaginarium's leading lady?"

"I truly do."

She looked down at her hands, and her next words were spoken almost in shame: "I am never going to be a prima ballerina, am I?"

"I think it unlikely, no." I answered gently. "Can your work for me be enough?"

Her smile was ghostly.

"It must be." She rubbed her face. "I am so tired." Her hands dropped to cradle the bump of our child. "She is growing so fast; she wears me out."

"She?" I raised an eyebrow.

"It's just a feeling."

"And have you had any feelings on what to name her?"

"No. Antoinette, maybe, or Isabelle. My mother's names, you know." I nodded. "But maybe she deserves a new name, something that belongs just to her. I don't know."

She rubbed her eyes again, looking achingly young, and I glanced at the afternoon sunshine.

"Can you sleep during the day?"

"Given the baby and the drugs they give me, I think I can sleep anytime, anywhere."

"Then let me help you back to your room. I'll let one of the staff know that you are resting."

I walked with Meg up the wooden stairs to the second floor and the corridor to her dormitory, and heard the sound at the same time as she did. It was an odd, shuffling noise, and I thought that someone was scuffing their feet on the staircase behind us, but looking around I saw no one following. The sound seemed to get louder the nearer we got to Meg's room, and I thought I could also hear someone coughing, a muffled noise, as if the person were covering their mouth with a handkerchief.

As we reached the end of the corridor where Rooms 2G and 2H were located, Meg glanced to her left, and froze. What little colour she had in her face drained from it like the temperature dropping in a thermometer, her eyes went wide and her mouth opened in a scream of utter horror as I turned my head to see what she was staring at.

"Dear God!" I pushed past Meg and ran into the room opposite. A woman of around Meg's age was hanging from the ceiling by the neck. She had somehow fashioned a noose from torn bedsheets, fastened it to a small hook in the ceiling where there might once have been a chandelier, and jumped from the bedside table.

The scuffing sound I had heard was her feet, kicking in a ghoulish dance of death, still brushing against the sides of the table, as if she was trying to regain a foothold. The coughing was her choking as her hands went instinctively to the tightening knot around her throat, her body fighting against the urge to die.

"Meg, help me!" I bellowed over her shrill scream. "Pull yourself together and grab her legs, take her weight!"

To her credit, Meg obeyed almost at once. Her eyes still glassy with shock, she crossed the space between us as quickly as possible and grabbed the hanging woman around the knees.

"Emily!" She cried, "Emily! It's alright, I've got you! We're going to get you down!"

I climbed onto the bed, taking my penknife from my coat pocket and using it to saw at the sheet. It took only a few seconds, but felt like an unbearable period of time before the fibres of the sheet gave way and the woman fell on top of Meg, sending both of them sprawling on the floor Meg on her back, staring into the face of a woman, Emily, who was presumably her friend. I rolled Emily off of Meg and onto her back on the floor, knelt myself and worked the knife between the taught noose and her skin. I was sure to cut Emily, I knew, as I forced the blade through the fabric once again, but it would not matter. The woman's mouth was gaping wide and her eyes were popping. Her skin had turned purplish, and she was utterly still.

"Emily," Meg knelt beside her, tenderly stroke the pale blonde hair away from her forehead as I pressed my fingers to her throat. "Emily, please, we saved you! You have to breathe!"

There was the clatter of feet outside and people spilled into the room, doubtless drawn by all the noise we were making. Most of them were staff in white clothes, and I saw orderlies blocking the doorway to prevent the other patients from entering. Faces stared at us, some horrified, some curious, and some simply sad, as Meg clutched Emily's hand and kept stroking her hair.

"Emily, please," She turned her attention to me. "Erik, do something! You saved me from drowning once, you must be able to do something!"

I put my hand on her shoulder. "I'm sorry, my dear. She is not breathing and there is no pulse. I cannot save her, Meg, no one can."

The noise Meg made did not even sound human. She folded in on herself, wailing with a grief that could not be described in words. Helplessly I pulled her to me, rocking her and rubbing her back, making the ineffective shushing sounds that were all I could think of.

One of the nurses stood over us.

"Did you see what happened?" She demanded.

"We have to get Meg out of this room," I ignored her question, and the nurse suddenly seemed to hear the keening noise that drilled into my brain.

"Of course. Rodgers, you and Marlow get a stretcher for the—for Mrs Tamworth. Taylor, get everyone else away from here at once! Rowley, help me get Giry to the infirmary."

"Yes, Nurse Reardon."

I did not see who spoke, but the orderly who appeared at my side almost matched me in height and had the muscles of a navvy. He leant down take Meg's arm, but she flailed and shrieked:

"Don't touch me! Get your hands off me!"

The words were high-pitched and in French, and the orderly swore. I could see how quickly a misunderstanding could take place.

"I've got her," I told him and the nurse, keeping my tone as gentle as I could for the sake of the distraught woman in my arms. "Come on now, Meg, up you come. That's it."

"The infirmary is downstairs," Reardon told me. "Rowley, show him, and make sure Giry gets a sedative."

"It's alright, Meg," I assured her as I pried her fingers from the dead woman's and hauled her to her feet with as much care as I could. "You've done all you can for her. Come with me now, come on."

"Can she walk?" Rowley asked me.

"She can." I told him in English, before returning to crooning in French. "That's right, Meg, one foot in the front of the other. Here we go."

She almost collapsed on the stairs as that piteous sound stopped coming from her lips, but did not fight when Rowley caught her on the other side. Her silent crying was somehow more frightening than the high-pitched wail, as if no sound could express her grief.

The infirmary looked like a hospital ward, lined with beds separated by curtains, only one of them occupied by a sleeping patient.

"Hold her still." Rowley let go of Meg so that I had to catch her weight, and scrabbled for a few seconds behind one of the curtains before returning with a syringe. Without ceremony, he plunged into the spot where Meg's throat met her shoulder.

"What is that?" I was alarmed at his haste.

"Sedative," he replied. "There we go."

I shifted to catch Meg under the arms as she slumped against me and Rowley took her around the knees. Between us, we lifted her onto the nearest bed, and he began to fasten its restraints around her ankles.

"What are you doing?" I demanded.

"It's necessary."

"I don't give you authorisation to—"

"You're the guardian?" He looked me squarely in the face.

"Yes. Erik Danton."

"Well, Mr Danton, believe me when I tell you that when someone dies in here by their own hand, the chances of a lot of other people doing the same goes through the roof. Especially if they have tried to do so before." Meaningfully, he drew another restraint tight around Meg's wrist. "You want to keep her safe?"

"Yes, of course."

"Then you let me do my job. A nurse will change her clothes later."

I stepped back, and let Rowley strap Meg down. Her uniform dress was stained where the dead woman's bowels had loosened and I suddenly felt sick. Not with disgust but with an abrupt, overwhelming sadness. Perhaps I was wrong to leave Meg at Kirkbride, where the suicide of one woman could not be stopped. Or perhaps in doing so, that was exactly what was being prevented.