Disclaimer: Eh. Not mine, and sadly enough, I didn't get the Phantom for Christmas… Ho Hum.
A/N: Happy New Year all, and don't forget your Masquerade Parties and masks.
Chapter 3
Early morning light was streaming through a shuttered window, and as Leah emerged from the deep folds of sleep, she remembered the previous night.
"Erik! Where is Erik?" She cried to the empty room.
As she struggled to sit up in the clean white sheets, a nurse bustled in through the wide oak door, in a long Gown and a hat that in Leah's opinion, looked as if it would take off and fly.
The Nurse looked young, maybe eighteen, with straw-blonde hair sticking in straggles from beneath the hat.
For all her young appearance, she still gave off an air of friendly authority.
"Peace, M'Dear, Peace, your Erik will be here soon," She said softly as she opened the curtains on the window and checked the dressing on Leah's wound.
"Please Miss," she croaked, in a voice not her own, "Who are you? And where am I?"
"Ah, 'tis best not to worry yourself with these things so soon, but I am Sarah." She said, with a slight English lilt to her voice. "I'll be up with your breakfast soon, but in the meantime, I think it best you lay back and rest, was quite a wound you had."
She walked from the room, and turned down a corridor.
Leah lay back on plumped pillows, and looked around the room.
She was in a huge four-poster bed, surrounded by gossamer curtain, and to the right of the bed there was the sunny window, looking out onto the busy Paris streets.
To the left was the large door, and a giant wardrobe.
At the foot of the bed there was a dressing table, adorned with perfumes and make-up from all over the world.
This was clearly the room of a wealthy lady, or of someone of such society.
Persian carpet decorated the hardwood floors, with complex patterns of flowers, and beasts of Africa.
She heard the voice of the Nurse from the end of the corridor; she was conversing with someone who sounded like her supervisor of sorts.
"Mornin' 'Liza. She woke with a terrible start, callin' for her 'Erik'. Wonder who he is? Lover maybe? She looks terrible young to have a lover… Could he be a Father or brother mayhap?"
Leah smiled in her Nurses' (as she assumed she must be) ignorance. Nothing could be further from the truth.
"She seems t'be doing well for the most part…" Sarah continued, "A little restless, her sleepin' was, but that's to be expected. The wound looks to be healin' nicely. Now if you don't mind. I'd like to be taking my breakfast; I've been up most the night with the little wretch." She finished, and Leah heard the sound of the little Nurse beginning down a flight of stairs.
"You are excused, Sarah," said an old woman's' voice, but Leah really wondered if it mattered to Sarah whether she had been excused or not.
This voice was a sight more educated than Sarah's, but it still had the English twang.
The older woman appeared in her doorway, and greeted her kindly.
"I bid you a Good Morning, Miss. I fear I do not know your name…" She trailed off.
"Leah. My name is Leah," she rasped. Her voice was like a gate that had not been oiled, and was slowly getting the squeak used out of it.
"Hmmm, that'd be the medicine, it's not kind on the throat, but it works to ward off infection." Again she smiled kindly, "I'd like to know more of the story of the girl we found bloodied and wrapped in a dark cloak on our doorstep. I presume it was not you who rang our bell to attract our attention here in the infirmary."
"I… don't think I know either…" she said. "I was with a friend, and I… fainted."
Leah knew this was a sketchy story, not exactly enough to explain the sword-wound and the mysterious companion.
The older Nurse gave her a look of doubt and disbelief, but Leah was not going to betray Erik.
Obviously the ladies of this place knew nothing of 'Erik', the man of her odd ramblings, and she began to worry how much she had given away in her delirious mumbles.
Leah tried to look earnest, but looked down at the coverlet, unable to hold the woman's unrelenting stare.
"Who is Erik?" she asked directly, the very question that Leah was afraid of.
Leah couldn't answer it. And if she did not, she would appear rude to her kind guardians, who had shown her care when they did not even know her.
"He…" She stammered, "He… is my lover." She said simply. It was not a lie, even if the feeling was not mutual.
"Oh, Dear…" the Nurse said softly, with understanding, all the disbelief and hardness disappearing from her eyes. "Is he… Alright?" she asked.
"No." she replied shortly, remorseful at what she was about to say, "He is dead."
No! She thought furiously, In no way do I wish Erik dead. Not Erik… She let a single tear escape from her eye.
"Oh, you poor girl, I remember what it was like to be young and in love…." She sighed, nostalgia in her old eyes. "Do not worry… He will be alright, He is with God now…" She said as she rose from her place on Leah's bed.
"Sarah will be back up with your meal soon, rest up. You are looking well." She went to the door, pausing, looking back around.
"How old are you, Dear?" she asked, her eyes bright with curiosity.
"Sixteen." She said, and with a nod, the Nurse left.
"Sixteen! Sixteen Sarah! So young…" Eliza exclaimed as she sat down.
Sarah looked up from the breakfast she was preparing, "Not quite that young Ma," she said, "Some girls in Ole' Mother England are given away at fifteen… Not the life for me, I'm a'feered."
Eliza laughed, looking at her 'adopted' daughter. "That's right, your Mother set you here to me because you refused to marry, and she couldn't handle you."
"Oh, and you can? Old One?" Sarah giggled, and ran to the other side of the kitchen, spilling the pitcher or water she was carrying down her dress.
Eliza tutted, and rolled her eyes. "If I wasn't so worried, I'd show you a beating you'd not soon forget."
"Why are you so worried Ma?" Sarah asked sitting down at the kitchen bench, across form her own guardian, with the full tray of breakfast for the girl Leah.
"Her lover has died, and it appears she is alone. She would not tell me clearly who the 'Friend' she was with last night was. I am beginning to suspect here was none. It seems she was brought to the infirmary by the simple kindness of a stranger."
Sarah shifted in her seat uncomfortably, not exactly seeing where Eliza's statement was leading, but feeling odd about it all the same. "Then what of the girls' hideous wound Eliza?" she whispered, all hilarity gone from her demeanour.
"And attempt at suicide, I believe." Eliza said frankly, nearly without expression.
Almost the entire infirmary was catholic, and Eliza and Sarah were quite devoted to their religion.
Sarah clutched at the rosary that hung around her neck under the robes, and gasped to herself. Suicide… the greatest sin.
"But… a stab to th' arm, and a ragged one at that… 'Tis not really the conventional method of suicide in these parts…"
"Sarah, you know nothing of love… and a lost love can drive one quite mad…" Eliza said, "And this Leah is not at all conventional, I find her strange… not as most Parisians… it is as if she is from another land altogether… who knows of her ways…"