Chapter 15 –

When they arrived back at the house, they found Erik playing a random piece in the sitting room.

"Why are you in here?" Elizabeth asked.

"I was told not to look over my cast, or I'd go crazy, so now I am going insane not looking at it." he replied bitterly, still continuing the song.

"Erik, you don't have to listen to me, you know. If you really wanted to, you could have looked over the cast."

"I know." he replied and turned back to the notes he was reading. Elizabeth assumed that he wasn't really reading the notes and that he was playing from memory. Everyone sat down and listened to Erik play.

Dinner came and went without any worthwhile events, and everyone retired to the parlor again.

"Could I take Caroline out for a walk?" Daniel asked boldly.

"After what happened last time? I don't think so." Mr. Bennet replied sternly to his son.

"We didn't get hurt or anything, please, sir? I want to see the rest of the gardens, Daniel tells me there are even more outside the west wing of the house." Caroline asked.

"Yes, I'm sure you'd love to see the i gardens /i wouldn't you?" Elizabeth commented with a smile.

"Please?" They both pleaded.

"Fine, just go. Get out of my sight." David Bennet said, and the two left the room quickly.

"I think her parents might want to kill me after this." Elizabeth said, joking. "She is only twelve."

"Don't worry dear, Daniel knows that and they were both brought up very well, so we don't need to worry."

"I hope you are right, brother."

Caroline ended up staying for the night again because she wanted to say goodbye to her new friends, who were leaving the next day. When they all stood at the front door everyone was silent. Elizabeth was beginning to tear up and was trying to hide it. She loved her family and she was going to miss them, but she hardly ever cried openly and she didn't want anyone to see it. However, no one else cared in the least.

She hugged her niece and nephew first, then her sister-in-law. Then she turned to her big brother. She was going to miss them all, but probably her brother the most. "I'm going to miss you very much." she said quietly to him.

"You should come visit us; you haven't been to London for so long and we would love for you to visit." he replied. Elizabeth nodded.

Amelia promised to write her new friend as often as she could, and Caroline had already promised to write to her brother. They all hugged. Erik shook Mr. Bennet's hand and then the family was off. Caroline's carriage had arrived seconds later and she, too, was gone. Erik and Elizabeth stood in the front foyer for a few minutes silently.

"I'm going to miss them dearly." Elizabeth finally said breaking the silence.

"Yes, having them here was a nice change. You should go visit them as soon as you can."

"Yes, my brother invited me; I might go during the summer when I wouldn't feel bad about abandoning the school."

"Why don't we have dinner? Then we could work on some of the stuff for the show." Erik asked kindly, he wasn't good with this type of confrontation, he didn't know how to comfort people very well. Elizabeth nodded and they headed for the dinning room.

They ate in complete silence, neither knowing what to say to the other. Then they headed for Elizabeth's study and continued with work on the production.

That was how the remainder of the break went, and the two had gotten reasonably far in the writing of the scripts for both Cinderella and Snow White.

When the school year began, again Elizabeth got up extra early on the first day back, and headed for a meeting she was not going to enjoy.

When she reached the school, she found the people she was meeting were already there. "Hello, Mr. and Mrs. de Changy."

"Hello, Miss Bennet how are you today."

"I am fine, thank you, how are you."

"We are both doing well, as is Andrew." Elizabeth nodded and led them to her office.

She sat down behind her desk and the couple sat down in the chairs in front of her. The family had really wanted for Andrew to attend Elizabeth's school, but after finding Erik, that changed. Now they assumed that Elizabeth had sent the Phantom away and that she would still be interested in teaching Andrew.

"We first would like to say that we're sorry for the problems we caused for you on Christmas Eve, but you must understand that finding him there caused some very serious concern. But with the current situation, we would still gladly send Andrew to you school." Raoul said with a smile

"What do you mean by current situation?" Elizabeth asked confused.

"Well, as long as he isn't here anymore, we see no problems for Andrew attending your school. You must understand that we don't blame you for the problem. We know that you did not know about his past…"

"Sir, Erik still works at my academy; I chose not to relieve him of his position. The reason in fact that I asked you to attend this meeting was because I would like to help find a different school for your son. I know of some very nice music academies in London and I think that would be better suited for your family." Elizabeth said calmly.

"He still works here?" Raoul jumped up from his seat and knocked the chair over as he said it.

"Yes, Erik is a very capable teacher, and I don't believe that the experiences you had with him were reason to find a new teacher. I have never had a vocal teacher with Erik's ability and I don't want to send him away."

The couple sat still, with horrified looks on their faces. Finally, Raoul moved and took Christine by the arm, forcefully, but not to hurt her and the couple left the school.

Elizabeth followed behind them. When they reached the front door Erik stood there, his eyes and Raoul's eyes locked in a hateful glare. Christine pulled her husband away and headed for the carriage.

The two were gone in seconds, and Erik looked back from the carriage to Elizabeth, who still stood in the doorway. The two didn't know what to say to each other. Erik knew she was going to talk to Christine and her husband, but he had not expected it to be now.

The morning before the students' arrival went very awkwardly. Everyone was still very confused about the events of Christmas Eve and Elizabeth's meeting with the staff went less than perfectly. Everyone was afraid to speak, not knowing what the reaction would be, and the topics were kept mainly to the spring play. The music instructors, as well as Meg, had written a cast list for their students, and Elizabeth looked them over happily, liking what she saw. After the meeting everyone left the room quickly, except Elizabeth and Erik, who had not spoken a word through the entire meeting.

"Are you all right, Erik?" Elizabeth finally asked.

"I just wish you had told me they were going to be here today. I would have avoided the situation. The entire town did not need to see that."

"I'm sorry, but I was afraid of what you might do if I told you."

"I have to get to my classroom." He stood up and began to walk to the door.

"Erik, I'm sorry, but if I didn't it, could have been worse. He may have wanted to fight you or kill you, had it not been in the public street with his wife standing next to him and his son near the carriage. I'm really sorry for betraying your trust, but Erik, you have to understand..."

"You may come by later when I give the cast list to the class."

"Bye Erik."

"Bye."

Elizabeth made her way back to the office slowly, saying hi to random students on the way. When it was an hour into class and she was sure Erik had given sufficient amount of time to talking over the Christmas show she walked into the music room. Everyone was sitting silently reading.

"Finally!" Caroline exclaimed when she saw Miss Bennet.

"Hello everyone, what are you doing?" She looked around.

"Mr. Erik said we couldn't find out the casts until you came, so he told us to read." Hattie replied. Elizabeth laughed lightly.

"Well I'm here now. Don't torture them any longer, Erik." He smirked and got up holding a few pieces of paper.

"First, we'd like to inform you that this year we are doing a series of seven fairy tales, so everyone will have a leading part in at least one, and two or three small roles in others. We cast this from what we thought you would do well on, and now when we compose for the plays, we will be able to make songs specifically for your own voices rather than just your section in general. Miss Bennet, would you like to tell them what the seven stories are?"

"We will be doing Cinderella, Hansel and Gretel, Sleeping Beauty, The Frog Price, Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, and Snow White, in that order, in fact. Now, Mr. Erik, are you finished so they can see their parts now?"

"Just give me a minute." He seemed to be taking longer than he had needed to find them on his desk. Elizabeth walked over and picked the seven papers up. They were in fact the top papers on the table, and she just shook her head at him.

Once they were posted and the students rushed to see their parts she turned back to Erik. "You are evil."

"It's more fun that way, they were practically falling out of their seats."

"So you find it fun to torture…"

"I have to play a Grandmother!" It was Hattie. She ran over to the desk carrying, Little Red Riding Hood with her. "Why do I have to play the grandmother? I'm not even the oldest! Not to mention I have to kiss a frog in the other play."

"My casting is final." Erik said loud enough for the whole class to hear, "I believe that I cast it properly and I will not change it." Hattie handed the paper back to Emily, sat down, and buried her face in her book. Elizabeth looked to Erik and mouthed the words 'I'll handle it' to him.

She walked over to the sulking girl. "Hattie, why are you so upset?"

"I have to be a grandmother! The casting is bad."

"We wanted to give you another large role. You were already the lead princess in the other one, and we gave you the role of Grandmother, who has an entire song to herself. You also get to be one of the dwarfs who each get solos in their group numbers. You'll do great at it. Hattie, people who can play many different roles are very talented, and we believe that you can do that." The girl finally nodded and got up to discuss everything with the rest of the class.

After lunch, the students went to their academic classes, and Elizabeth came to Erik's classroom and began to work on the pieces for the show. Most of the times they would discuss it together, but sometimes she would just sit back and let Erik dream up something in his head.

Then he'd show it to her, and it would be brilliant. She sometimes felt that he would be much more capable and able to do it on his own. She however was needed because she knew these fairy tales inside out and Erik knew the main story from years ago. She helped very much with the lyrics where he seemed to take longer.

On the way home at the end of the day, the two walked mainly in silence. Finally Erik spoke up about what he'd been thinking about all day. "Elizabeth, why do you not have children?"

"Because, obviously, I am not married, Erik." She replied, slightly angered by his question.

"I know but, why did you never marry? You would make an excellent mother and, I'm sure, wife. You are so great with those children. What you did with Hattie today was amazing, I would never have been able to get her to accept the casting. I would have probably left it at 'My casting is final.'"

"Party I think that is something that most men wouldn't understand, and it's more of a female talent, but I think it also has something to do with your past, most likely. You were never treated nicely or fairly and that makes it harder for you to do that for others. It's not in any way your fault, Erik."

"That still doesn't answer my question of why you are not married. However, I do applaud you on your ability to draw the attention to myself."

"It is as simple as the fact that I never fell in love. As much as I'd love to be a wife and mother I have given up that dream rather than dwell on it. For that reason, I put my focus mainly on my work and rather than raising one or two children, I help to raise nearly fifty who benefit from their experiences at my school. I am happy with my life, Erik. I do not need your sympathy or pity or whatever other emotions you are feeling because of it."

They were silent for a minute. "Also, you should not be the one asking me that, Erik. You yourself are not married, seem to have no desire to be a father, and are older than I am, yet you work well with those children. Why is it so different that I am not married with children?"

"You should know the answer to that, Elizabeth." His voice had changed and he clearly did not want to be speaking about this.

"It's been six years Erik; she is gone and is happy where she is. There are more women in the world than Christine." She replied, almost angry that he would throw his life away for what had happened all those years ago.

"Even if I was able to get past what happened six years ago, no women could ever get past this and what is under it." he said, pointing to his mask. He then began to walk much faster and Elizabeth had a hard time keeping up.

"That's a lie, and you know it, Erik. You have been in this town for over a month and beyond their first look at you, people think nothing of that mask. Not one person has ever asked anything about it since you arrived here. The only reason it caused you problems before was because of the fear that mask brought to the opera house. Here it brings none of that." He kept walking at the fast pace and she gave up trying to keep up to him. He was never going to understand that he was not a monster because of the mask he wore.