The small chapel was one of the simplest rooms in L'Opéra, as far as gaudiness was concerned. The only other thing that matched it was the small room far above with the ropes to manage the chandelier, and that had a sloping roof and a splintery wooden floor. No, Laureline far preferred the chapel, as pacing it barefoot did not lead to bits of wood stuck into her feet, as had happened in the chandelier loft.
Laureline Le Moûel sat in front of the candles, casually lighting one with a match on each side of the holy painting. The two blew a little in the dank room, but Laureline took no notice. She stood after placing the match on the smooth, stone floor, pressing a hand to her knee. She was quite sore from having helped pin all of La Carlotta's Hannibal costumes to perfectly fit Christine Daae, who possessed a less curvaceous figure.
Laureline had never exchanged a word with the new prima soprano, but she knew from her friend Annie that Christine was a dreamy girl who cared little for anything but music. This was fortunate for Laureline, who found that Carlotta's much hated hat did not coordinate half so well with Christine's delicate coloring. If the colors in her hat were a little off, so be it; Christine Daae would not care a jot.
Sighing, Laureline returned her mind to the present, and the fact that the gala was starting in less than a quarter-hour. She stood, head bowed, hands pressed together, as she started her pre-show ritual. After beginning, she lowered herself to her knees.
"Excuse me, Dieu, for as you know, the gala is today. It is very, very soon, and I do hope you set your whole being into our performance, so that we might be able to continue to employ some of those who would have no home otherwise. Please bless all of the singers, dancers, and stage hands with talent, luck, and easiness. Take away their fears and let them be happy and-"
"Do you often speak out loud to your inexistent Lord on high?" A soft voice cut like steel through Laureline's monologue to God. She snapped her head up, frowning angrily.
But her face curled into a smile when she saw one of her private customers, the only one whose identity she did not know. She recalled their first meeting now, and how she'd come to be so lucky as to received his good graces.
----
2 July 1864. Paris, France.
Laureline gasped as she opened the small box. "Albain," she breathed, "it's beautiful." She lifted a small mannequin, wearing a tiny black dress embroidered with gold flowers. The face was painted like a china doll, with a crown of black hair and pink cheeks. The little mannequin had a lovely smile and a pair of real satin gold slippers on her tiny feet.
"It took me a little while, but I made it. You only become a double-digit once in a lifetime, you know." Albain Cretoux squeezed his employer-friend's shoulders easily. He was sixteen, and she had just turned ten, but they were great friends.
"I can scarcely believe it, you do much better work than half the grown-ups I've met," Laureline said, still in awe of her gift. "I shall put it on my desk, next to the little cat you gave me last year."
"An excellent idea. And I'll get get back to work." He bowed a little to her, and went over to his chair as she made her way into her little private office off of the tailoring-room.
The doll was the loveliest thing she'd ever seen, and it was for her! Handmade by a friend, just for her. She closed the door, and leaned against it, caressing the paint on the tiny face. "You shall be Christine-Baptiste, after my father." Laureline placed the newly baptized Christine-Baptiste on her desk next to the similarly made cat, who had been named Cielinni after her mother's mother's maiden name.
Then, she noticed a curious thing: in the middle of her badly organized desktop lay a crisp, white envelope addressed in red to Madamoiselle Le Moûel. Laureline was instantly intrigued, and glanced around surreptitiously before taking out her letter-opener, decorated with a white porcelain rose. After she'd split the envelope, she took out the letter.
To Mlle L.-C. Le Moûel:
Fondest greetings. I have for some time been watching your progress in your designs, and have found I desire to become a customer of yours. I know of your private customers, and wish to become one of them. My only requirement is that you allow me to conceal my identity.
To accept this gracious offer, merely say so (aloud, if you please). I shall answer straightaway.
Laureline looked very suspiciously around her, then alighted on the darkest corner, in which she had a screen in case someone needed to try on a costume. After a moment, she decided it could do no harm to provide someone with the very best clothes.
"I accept, of course."
"Very good, Mlle Le Moûel." A man of impressive height stepped from behind the screen. He wore a somewhat out-of-fashion suit in black with an off-white shirt beneath it. Most of his face was covered with a black leather mask, but he seemed (to Laureline) to have even features and cool, appraising eyes. His skin was pale, and his hair was black. "Please call me Monsieur Dupoint."
"Of course, M Dupoint. Enchantée." Laureline eyed his outfit. "And please, never wear that offensive color again."
Monsieur Dupoint paused a moment. "I beg your pardon, Mlle Le Moûel."
"That hideous excuse for a white. You have very fine coloring, not so unlike mine, and I would never wear such a creamy color. I'll have you into pure white in an instant, if you don't mind."
"Ah. But have I been misinformed? Even Madame Giry has a personal tailor." The masked M Dupoint smirked slightly when she eyed him cautiously, both at his extensive knowledge about her business and his abrupt change of topic.
"Yes, yes, I am sorry. Hide behind that screen again, would you, monsieur?"
He obliged with an incline of his head, and Laureline called out, "Albain? Come in here, please."
Albain entered, his dark red-brown hair falling into his forehead. "Yes, Laureline?" At her motion, he shut the door behind him, curiosity peaked.
"Undoubtedly, you've heard from the other seamstresses and tailors that I have some private customers."
"I had heard of it, everyone in the department knows. No one outside of it does, though, of that I'm sure." Albain was slightly uncomfortable as Laureline looked him over.
"Hmm. Only five are supposed to so far, but right now, you're number six. Would you like to be personal tailor to a new client I've just acquired?" Albain considered, then nodded carelessly.
"I hope it is a man, though. And one who likes nice, layered, fine outfits."
"How very correct you are." M Dupoint came out from behind the screen, towering slightly over the adolescent Albain, who was still not at his complete height yet. "I am Monsieur Dupoint, and you are?"
"Albain Cretoux IV. Enchantée."
M Dupoint scowled at Laureline. "Do all you sewers say that? I cannot imagine being enchanted to make my acquaintance."
"It is the polite way, at least as far as my class is concerned. But I am generally held to go in the best circles, as far as my family is concerned. And Albain, well, he has known me for a good two years, monsieur, and he has picked up some of my habits. Fortunately, he's avoided the bad ones."
Neither Laureline nor M Dupoint smiled during this little speech, but Albain hid a grin. "Albain, nothing is amusing," Laureline said to him. "Why do you smile?"
"Oh, nothing, only you two are so proper, and here are you, this little sprig of a ten-year-old, and here's this tall genteel person, talking like equals. And he's so unfashionable, I don't know how you can bear to look at him, knowing you."
"Albain!" Laureline gasped.
But M Dupoint let a rumbling laugh fill the room. The sound was unnatural, like it rarely happened. "I assure you, M Cretoux, I will be quite fashionable when your employer is done with me."
"Of course you shall." Laureline spoke up, recovered from the shock of Albain's blunt comment. "Now, Albain, get the stool. M Dupoint, please take off that offensive jacket."
"Excusez-moi?" M Dupoint looked quite offended.
"We must get your proper measurements, which is hardly possible when you're wearing that bulky coat." Laureline held out her hand for the coat, which M Dupoint uneasily gave her. Laureline smiled easily. He might be quite nervous around two young people, but he knew who was in charge here.
As Laureline fetched her measuring tape and Albain sat himself at the desk with a fresh bit of paper, M Dupoint set himself on the stool. Frowning slightly, Laureline then fetched a chair from a corner and set it near him. "Now, put out your arms. Lord, that shirt is so annoying. Quite unflattering."
Laureline continued in her mindless banter as she measured his arms, head, torso, and legs. She called out measurements to Albain, who copied it all down with precision. Finally, she said, "One left, but Albain's going to do it."
"Hm?" Albain looked up from the page, then stood. "Oh right." He took the measuring tape, and measured from M Dupoint's shoulder through his legs and back up to his shoulder, calling out the measurement. "Nous avons fini!" he said in triumph.
M Dupoint stepped nimbly off the stool to look at the sheet of measurements, shocked at the semblance of disorder the list gave. "How do you understand this, Mlle Le Moûel?"
"It's a system I created to make it easier." Laureline was pleased she'd confused a man who seemed very, very smart, and had even made him so unsure that he'd had to ask. "And now, I must ask you to take your leave. My mother and father are arriving shortly from Italy to celebrate my birthday with me, and I must put on something a little more formal so I can see the opera tonight."
M Dupoint eyed Laureline's green frock, and humphed a reply. He bowed to her, nodded to Albain, and left.
Albain followed him out through the sewing room, and opened the door seconds after it had closed. He looked back to Laureline, and said, "Gosh, he's gone."
Laureline smiled. She knew it.
He was magical.
---
Laureline now stood easily, arranging her skirts around her in a semblance of neatness. "M Dupoint! I was not expecting to see you."
"I must confess, you should know by now I don't like to be called that." M Dupoint, or 'Erik', as he liked Laureline to call him, smiled gracefully as he leaned against the wall with his arms crossed.
"Désolée, Erik," Laureline said. "But you're very old, compared to me. It's only polite."
"Nonsense," M Dupoint, Erik, said. "I'm not going grey yet."
"You could dye your hair with ink, monsieur- Erik, I mean, and none would be the wiser." Laureline smiled. "But enough of that. Tell me, why on earth do you have no faith? God cannot have been so very unkind to you; you overpay me often."
Erik's jaw clenched momentarily. Laureline pretended she had not seen. "Granted, madamoiselle, you always see fit to return it to me. And do not speak of what you know nothing about."
"Then I suggest you hold your tongue about faith in the Lord, since you obviously are quite ignorant on the subject."
Erik felt rather like he had the time when he was assaulted with rocks from a jeering crowd, only Laureline was just one girl hurling words. And she only was cruel to him when she thought he was to her; he could not complain of unfair treatment.
"Of course, madamoiselle." Erik's tone was steely now. "But now we must talk business. As you know, there shall be a masquerade for the turn of the year."
"Oh, if you want me to make you a costume, I'm afraid you'll have to wait. It's a horrible habit of mine to give gifts, you know, and I've begun to feel like you are a friend, so I thought it only natural I do something for you without compensation. And Albain agrees with me, so you shall have to wait until December for your costume. I know you shall like it."
Nothing could have assured Erik more than Laureline's last words.
Laureline heard footsteps, somewhere, as she smiled with her and Erik's gazes fixed. She gasped. "They will find you, and what will become of me! Quick, you must go. Au revoir, Erik."
Erik spontaneously kissed her hand and disappeared into the shadows. Laureline, slightly surprised, spun to face Albain. "They're starting. And one of the dancers ripper her costume."
"Oh no, hurry, Albain, we shall have to fix it-"
"It is already fixed, do not worry. Everything shall go beautifully, thanks to your handiwork. Now come."
Laureline let herself be led away to the glamour of backstage.