Chapter 14:
As weary as she might be, Candela pulled herself together and washed out the teacup. No matter how mentally exhausted she might be, she had no excuse for leaving more dishes for Darius to wash whenever he returned from the market.
Watching the remainders of the tepid tea flow into the soapy water, Candela muttered to herself,
"Unravel your thoughts, mad girl. Be rid of your doubts. This is for the best." Closing her eyes, the Spanish maid took several deep breaths and returned the cup to the cupboard, pleased to find her mind more at peace then before.
Her compass had been set.
"I shall be Candela Valentina, the Marquesse de Bonnaire. It is so pretty." After straightening her skirts and confirming her hair and expression were once more to her pleasure, she slinked from the kitchen and on her way to the front door, easily evaded the hearing and sight of Nadir, still hold up in his study.
A few sidewalk scurries and a scamper across a busy thoroughfare, Candela found herself standing, in the fading light of the Paris afternoon sun, before the Opera House once more. A week had passed since she had promised the managers to speak to the Opera Ghost.
Perhaps she shouldn't have gotten so engrossed in securing her own future.
Putting any concerns or reservations aside, she straightened her shoulders and marched once more into the foyer of the Opera House, ignoring the gilded finery. Once more she was met by the same blond ballerina, a Ms. Giry if the Spaniard remembered correctly, and was escorted a second time to the office of the managers.
After a brief thank you to the helpful girl, Candela lightly knocked on the door.
"Come in!" She heard and recognized the voice as Firmin. Clicking open the door, she entered.
"Good afternoon, gentleman. I hope I'm not disturbing you from anything important." A glance between the two men confirmed she was not. A light that had been absent until her departure on her first visit, still glowed in both of their eyes, burning brighter with hope at her reappearing.
"Mademoiselle! Did you speak the Phantom?" Nodding, she took the proffered seat and folded her gloved hand in her lap.
"Yes, I did speak with him. If you keep to your promise of upholding the conditions stated in the contract you signed when you initially became the managers, he will resume his former position as the Opera Ghost. I was hoping perhaps we could schedule a meeting? Perhaps sometime tomorrow or the next?"
Both managers glanced at each other and Andre stepped away to consult their appointment book before he spoke up,
"Ten o'clock tomorrow would be wonderful. In this office?" He offered.
"Very well. It is understood that no one save for yourself, me, and the Phantom shall be present?"
"Of course, Mademoiselle. It would not be helpful to either of our positions in society for anyone else to be aware of our connect with that entity." An agreeing grin was sufficient communication between the three of them as Candela saw herself out of the office.
E-OC
"Señor Phantom!" Candela called out as she entered the house by the lake and hung up her coat and gloves. After bending down to stoke the fire to remove the chill from the air, she continued into the dining room and hallway, in search of the ghost. Determining those rooms empty of the man, she raised her hand to knock on his door when it opened unexpectedly.
"You called, Candela?" He inquired, leaning against the doorway and balancing once hand on a lean hip. Straightening her shoulders, she folded her hands behind her back and rocked on the balls of her feet.
"I did. On my way home from Nadir's, I spoke with the managers of your Opera House. We have a meeting with them tomorrow at ten in their office. I trust you have no other engagements?" Her dark eyes teasingly twinkled and the Phantom answered back, equally sarcastic,
"Erik shall have to consult his appointment book. He leads a busy life, you know."
"Of course, you are. If you should find yourself busy, you will find your errant girl in the kitchen, making supper." With a passing smirk, she flicked her hair over her shoulder and marched away to the kitchen to fix the pair of them something to eat. Her absence since breakfast time guaranteed he had missed lunch.
If Candela did anything before she wed the Marquis, she would make sure that the ghost ate regularly.
E-OC
As she pattered away from his door, Erik found his eyes drifting along the edges of her lavender dress, analyzing her form more thoroughly than he should. Properly embarrassed and blushing beneath the mask, he quickly slammed the door and returned to his organ.
She was no prettier than a hundred other Parisian or Spanish girls who roamed the countryside and served in the houses of others.
Her figure, more buxom than Christine's, was hardly any different than any other girls', he convinced himself. But, as he studied the ivory keys with their well-warn hallows after years of playing, he considered whether her beauty and attraction stemmed from what lay behind the dresses and layers of skin.
She did have a good heart.
"She is kinder than Christine." He thought out loud before resuming his playing. A year of solitude had surely made him go mad. It would do him well to get out of the small house by the lake and distract himself with the thoughts of his opera.
The one love that wouldn't betray him.
E-OC
"Are you ready, Mademoiselle?" Erik inquired as he straightened his suit jacket, almost smiling behind the full-face mask at Candela's fussing over her hair. It seemed to him a typical female tendency to fret over their hair despite his lack of understanding on that subject. There were advantages, he found, to only having a few locks of stringy hair on one's head. A quick brush and all problems were solved.
"No. My hair won't cooperate." The maid remarked as she tried to affix a lock of hair against her head. "If only I had a comb or something. Today of all days it would fail me!" With a sigh of resignation and exasperation, Candela turned to pick up her reticule when a flash of silver caught her eyes. Turning away from the mirror, she stared at Erik, holding out a trembling gloved hand with a silver comb nested inside the black material.
"Señor Phantom…" She whispered, knitting her eyebrows together. "What is this?"
"A comb. Here, take it." Grasping her hand firmly in his, he pressed the silver piece into her hands. "Take it. Wear it." Clasping his hands behind his back, he forced any emotion from his voice. It was Christine's comb. A gift he might have given her if she had remained as his bride, living or dead. Yet, she had chosen a Vicomte. He could give her prettier gifts than a simple silver ribbon comb.
No sense in the item going to waste, hidden in his room.
Besides, it did look so pretty set against her dark hair.
Candela's bottom lip quivered as she carefully set the piece into her hair, admiring the way the silver glittered in her dark hair. She didn't dare ask who it was from or why he had given it to her. while the answer to the first question was clear, the second didn't desire addressing.
Turning to face the Phantom, she took one of his hands in hers, boldly locking eyes with him as she said,
"Thank you. I appreciate this." Her hands were small, Erik concluded as they grasped his elongated fingers. Or, perhaps just small by comparison.
"You're welcome." He replied, gently pulling away from her touch, unsure about his loss of equilibrium from her near proximity to himself. "Shall we leave now?"
"Yes, we shall." She replied curtly as they breezed through the door and towards the boat, moored at the dock awaiting them.
E-OC
Pausing in the dark passageway, the Phantom turned to Candela, his eyes easily seeing her in the pitch darkness while hers strained and failed to find any light to order herself by. Her hand clutched his in a slight panic. Darkness, while having never minded it too much, wasn't a favorite of hers. Not when the steady drip-drip of water and the scurrying of rats filled her ears.
"Where are we?" She whispered.
"Behind the wall of the managers' office. How do you think Erik managed to be the Opera Ghost?" A light slap on the shoulder set his joking tone aside.
"I know how. I just wanted to know where." She muttered as the Phantom peered through a tiny peephole.
"They're gone. I will open the door and let you in. Tell them that you got here early and that you hope they don't mind your waiting for them." Slamming the peephole shut, Candela heard his hand sliding around the passage until a wide swath opened, light pouring through and blinding the Spaniard for a moment.
"Some warning would have been nice." She muttered, stepping into the brilliantly lit office and finding a chair to set in while she waited for her eyes to adjust.
"Women are so difficult to please." Erik remarked before closing the sliding panel.
Candela resisted the desire to stick her tongue out in his general direction. She was a lady. Ladies didn't do that, no matter how tempting the thought was or how frustrating the would-be receiver was acting.
Fortunately for the pair, the managers weren't too late and, within ten minutes of the Phantom's arrival, they hurried through the door.
"Forgive us, Mademoiselle! We were held up. Is Monsieur Opera Ghost here?" They cast their gaze around in the room, straining to see if the Phantom was visible. Candela found it quite comedic.
"I am here, Monsieur Firmin and Monsieur Andre." The sheer beauty and resonance of that voice stole her breath right from her lungs, leaving her quietly gasping. No wonder the Comtesse had believed he was an angel. Erik, the man who lived five cellars below, had been banished, and the Phantom, the omnipotent being of Opera lore, had eclipsed.
Candela found she approved highly of the alteration.
"Monsieur Phantom!" Andre called out, hiding his shaking hands behind his back. "Where are you? I had hoped we might be able to have a… face-to-face conversation. If you wouldn't mind, that is? We have some papers for you to sigh involving contracts and so forth…" He trailed of, tugging at his mustache, a habit he had adopted during the past few months of misery.
Behind the wall and peering through the peephole, Erik pondered the manager's request. In previous years, he had simple been an amorphic individual, speaking through walls. The former managers knew he had existed but couldn't pin an appearance on him.
Though, now he thought about it more, it would make good sense for him to be on face-to-face terms with the managers. They would work together more than they had in the past. With that change would come others.
Setting his jaw and bracing himself, he pressed the button and soundlessly stepped out of the walls, almost grinning at the stunned faces of the managers. His eyes flickered to Candela and hesitated to move. Dark orbs locked on him, she sat perfectly still, her mouth slightly ajar.
"Monsieur Phantom!" Firmin exclaimed, the first of the pair to recover from the shock of watching their ghost step from a wall. "I am honored to officially meet you." Bowing a couple of times, he offered his hand to the ghost, imperiously standing near his escape route.
"I wish I might add that the pleasure is mine." Neither of the men seemed to care that the Phantom of the Opera had just insulted them and produced papers galore.
"Shall we talk business?" A sharp nod from Erik and they retreated over to the farthest desk, leaving Candela with only the barest idea of their conversation. Instead, she was left with the studying of them. She wouldn't lie that she had been entranced when the Ghost had stepped from the wall. By now, she had thought she was accustomed to his theatrical ways and odd quirks of habit.
Apparently not.
Even now, watching him sitting on the edge of a desk, reading through a business contract, her breath caught. Built up of sharper angles, he contrasted well against the pudgy managers. As her first time seeing him interacting with humans other than Nadir (hardly a ordinary person in his own right), Candela found herself struck at his physical oddities, shining so brilliantly against normality, which she had ceased to notice long ago.
He is so unlike the Marquis. I like it.
Her own thoughts confounded her and, as they made her squirm in her seat, she preferred to turn her mind to more neutral things. Such as a shopping list that must be completed before the evening ended.
E-OC
Scratching the final loop of his name into the parchment of the contract, Erik set the pen aside and handed the paper to the managers.
"I believe we have a deal, gentleman." The pair scanned his signature and grinned.
"Thank you, Monsieur! Thank you! When can you begin? I beg of you, please let it be soon." After spending a moment tugging on the cuffs of his gloves, Erik said,
"The new Opera season won't begin until next year. We shall begin work next week on a new Opera, give everyone a long Christmas vacation and resume work the first of January. You will announce that to the public. The second or third week, we shall have a grand, reopening party before and after the Opera I choose. You shall plan."
Folding his hands behind his back, Erik paced before the desk, rattling off several other orders to the enraptured managers. Only when he paused and demanded verbal acknowledgement, did they unfreeze and jump right to work.
Pleased with their actions, Erik turned to see Candela scribbling away on a piece of paper, concentrating no doubt on a list of some sort.
"Candela." He called out, drawing her attention to him. "Are you ready to leave? I believe my business here is done."
"Everything signed, Señor Phantom?" She inquired, tucking the paper and pencil into her reticule.
"Yes, signed, sealed, and agreed upon. Shall we go home?" Shaking her head, the girl took a couple steps towards the door of the office.
"I have a lunch date with the Marquis and then a few errands to run. I should be home by supper. Have a good day." Dropping a curtsy to all three of the gentleman, she spirited away, leaving Erik to disappear through his wall.
E-OC
Plodding carefully through the damp halls, Nadir made his way through the labyrinthine cellars. The day had been quiet and boring, and, as it was nearing teatime, he decided to make himself a nuisance at his friend's house. If anything, there would be find conversation with the Spanish maid, should Erik turn uncivil and refuse to share a room with him.
For the most part, Nadir considered himself a modest man with few talents but when it came to his friend, he considered himself far more patient that most. Twenty years of enduring harsh words and hushed, if nonverbal, apologies, only bestowed when he was fortunate, had increased his patience far more than he could have ever wished for.
As the boat landed on the opposite shore, he sprang from the vessel, reminding himself later to not try that trick again, concluding youth hadn't remained with him as he had once hoped. Holding the flickering lantern aloft, he peered at the black wall he faced and pressed in several places, pleased when he saw the door open and bath him in a soft light. After blowing out the light and setting it aside, he stepped into the house, careful not to track much from the shores onto the fine Persian rugs.
The silence disturbed him.
Usually, Candela fluttered about the house, possibly humming or muttering to herself and clicking pans or knitting needles together. If nothing else, there were always footsteps pattering about the house. Except, now, not a sound broke the stillness of the empty house.
Not even Erik on his organ could be heard.
Once his coat and hat had been shed and deposited onto the hat rack, he followed his intuition and traipsed from the sitting room into the kitchen. Upon stepping through the doorway, Nadir frowned, slightly pleased with discovering Erik's location but hardly encouraged by the expression plastered over his unmasked face.
A year had passed since such a look of dejection crossed the cadaverous features.
"Erik. Good afternoon." He announced himself and then sat opposite his 'friend'. The bolt that passed through the Phantom's limbs concerned him even more. No one had slipped up on Erik.
"What are you doing here?" Erik muttered, glancing up at the dark face peering across at him.
"I'm a retired gentleman. I live my life to drop in for tea."
"This is the first time in four months." His masked companion remarked dryly.
"Even I can be busy on occasion. Where is Candela?" After pouring himself a cup of tea and adding several scoops of sugar to make the Russian beverage bearable, he glanced up, frowning at the flash of discomfort across the bare face.
"She's out with her young man. A lunch date to celebrate his courting her, no doubt."
"Ah, yes, the good Marquis." Nadir grinned, the connects not forming between Erik's expression and Candela's absence. "He will be very good for her. A pleasantly large fortune attached to a good man. They will do well together. No one will really care about the twenty-five years or so between them. She will be content. He loves her, you know." A weary nod greeted Nadir's eyes.
"It would take a heartless man not to love her." The words of response were formed on his tongue while he refilled his cup of tea when Erik's tone and subconscious body language struck him. A notable skip cut his response yet, Erik, typical of himself, paid no attention.
"Yes, I…I would suppose it would take a callous man to ignore such sweetness and peculiarity." Taking a longer than necessary sip to calm his quickly panicking his brain, he forced his next words to remain utterly calm, "What do you think of her being courted?"
His quick response did little to assuage Nadir's sick stomach,
"I'm sure it's very good for her."
"I didn't inquire as to your thoughts on its benefits to her. I wish to know what the Phantom of the Opera thinks about his housekeeper marrying."
"Erik is happy for her." Nadir, ever the policeman, was quick to spot the emotional lack in his tone. "You said he loves her, no? He will want to marry her as soon as possible. She will accept of course because she would insane not to. They will marry and she will be in a white wedding dress." While his eyes focused on Nadir, his mind was far away. "They will have children together and she will be happy. Because she will be happy, Erik shall be happy even though he will never see her again."
"Why would you never see her again?"
"The Marquis knows nothing of her past or my existence therein. How could she explain vanishing periodically to see a strange man? Her name would already be tainted by not coming or noble stock. She wouldn't dare tarnish it any further by consorting with me again."
For the entirety of Candela's relationship with the Marquis, Nadir had always supported her, never doubting for a moment that it was wisest for all involved. It had never crossed his mind that Erik might have grown fond of the girl, even, God forbid, fallen in love with her. there had never been a question in his mind that Erik still loved Christine and would love her until his dying day.
Until now, he hadn't seen any room in his heart for someone else.
"Erik, do you care for Candela?" The bare-faced Phantom glanced up, bewilderment spreading across horrific features.
"Of course, I care for her. She is a pleasant enough companion and has even seen to my welfare before her own. I care for her. Erik is not so cold as to not understand the barest of kindnesses." So, he will not admit to himself. Surely he would regret this but Nadir's next words fled his mouth before he could check them,
"Erik, forgive me, but do you love her?" The agony written in yellowed lines struck him square in the chest.
"I cannot!" Erik cried out, rising to his feet in pain-driven anger. "I cannot love her!" Then, more quickly to himself, "I mustn't love her. I love Christine. I must." Words Nadir believed to have been echoed many times through the past year as he lived around the Spaniard.
"Get out! Get out of my house!" The Phantom roared, slamming his tea cup against the table and shattering it into a million pieces, several nicking Nadir as the scattered. Despite the awful revelations of the evening, Nadir knew well when he should retreat.
A quick good-bye later and the Persian gentleman was scurrying home to his warm fireside, his friend's words still echoing,
"I love Christine. I must."