MADDIE
What do you buy the man who has it all? I asked myself as I peered through the windows of the small shops that lined the streets of Paris with Deirdre. I didn't even know if he would buy me anything, not that I cared because I hadn't really been given things since my mother was alive other than Madame Giry supplying me with a new pair of pointe shoes every year for my birthday. It was more than I could have hoped for and I'd already bought her gift. A small music box with a tiny ballerina in it that spun around to a beautiful melancholy tune.
"Granny will love it Maddie." Deirdre said with a smile and took my hand. "Can you keep a secret?" She asked excitedly and I nodded, almost laughing at her. I wasn't one for gossip, but Deirdre was my dearest friend and I could only tolerate it from her.
"I'm being courted Maddie, can you imagine?" She cried and my mouth dropped open. When had she had time to court? And why hadn't she told me?
"By who?" I asked, surprised and she grinned.
"Daniel Reynolds...he's so...lovely." She sighed and I giggled.
"Lovely? Isn't that a strange word to describe a man?" I asked and she shook her head, dancing along the street with me.
"We've kept it a secret since Charles's birthday in November, but I can't anymore, I just can't!" I smiled at her happiness, her energy giving me inspiration.
"I'm happy for you Didi..." I said, and I meant it, but something inside me felt a bit empty. It seemed people were always finding that special person and I was doomed to walk the earth alone.
Every time I thought of falling in love, I felt as if I were falling of a cliff with nothing to grab onto, nothing to stop me from spiraling down into the dark depths. The thought of giving myself to someone body and soul scared me to no end. The lusty evil in Louis Dupont's eyes seared through my mind and the memory of being crushed onto the kitchen floor in that café woke me up at night in a cold sweat almost every night. Not to dream was a blessing for me. I had the recurring dream of being on that kitchen floor, with Dupont whispering his nonsense and when he finally left me alone to cry and I looked at him, he transformed into Mama, her body pale and lips gone blue, her eyes looking through me instead of at me. No, I couldn't fall in love. To lose myself would be to lose everything, for I was all I had left.
"Maddie, you look so sad..." Didi said and I looked at her, swallowing the lump that came in my throat whenever I thought of Mama. I remembered the locket, the only piece I had left of her. Dorgan.
"Oh dear Maddie, please don't cry or I will too..." Deirdre said and I shrugged, smiling unhappily through my tears. "You're thinking of your Mother again aren't you?" She asked and I nodded.
"My locket, her locket. It's...gone." I said, and she embraced me as I leaned down and rested my head on her shoulder.
"Oh what I wretched selfish girl I am..." Deirdre said, holding me, "Here I am talking about how great my life is, and you're suffering." She took out her handkerchief and dabbed my eyes with it.
"Come on, let's get you back to the Chagny's." She said, and I shook my head.
"I have to buy something for Charles. Raoul too. It's the least I can do for all they've done for me."
Deirdre eyed me, but didn't press further as we walked into a small music store. It was there I found what I had been looking for. A beautiful black leather bound book, filled with blank music. Big enough to write an opera in. It was a bit expensive but I didn't care. This was the gift. Onto the leather I could use gold thread and sew his name onto it.
"Maddie, that is beautiful..." Deirdre breathed and I nodded, almost afraid to touch it. I lifted it with trembling fingers and held it securely to my body as I walked to the counter and paid the owner before we left. I didn't really know Raoul very well so I was a bit perplexed as to what he would like, but I remembered his office and how lovely it had been, so I settled on buying him a set of pens with the letter "C" on them for Chagny. It wasn't much, but I was satisfied with it.
As we passed a jewelry store, I saw a small shining heart shaped locket hanging in the window and my eyes began to burn as I thought of my lost old fashioned oval shaped one. Mama...why did you have to go? I miss you...She had been so lovely with the lightest brown, almost a dusty blonde color hair and my hazel eyes. We had the same mouth and nose, but we never knew where I'd gotten my hair color from. She told me my father had been a light brown also. Whenever I asked about him, she had simply shaken her head and dropped the subject. Poor Mama, she must have loved him for it wasn't hate I saw in her eyes but deep longing. If someone as beautiful as she had been couldn't find love, then how could someone like me find it?
It was true she had been a prostitute, but she would have done anything to make sure I was healthy and safe. She'd only become a prostitute after I was born. My father was a married man, and my grandfather, Alfred Denton, was horrid. Lowly rotten scum. He was a thief and a liar. It was his fault Mama had been thrown into prostitution. My mother's father had made some unseemly financial decisions and had gotten caught, so he'd forced Mama to sleep with men he chose for her for a price to pay off his debts. He'd owned a tavern and forced Mama to work there, I remembered him telling her she owed him for taking in her bastard child. He'd died about a year before Mama did and she took what little money she could find and we'd made a life for ourselves. Six months after his death, she grew ill and saw a doctor who informed her that she had syphilis. Slowly, she had deteriorated from that. I'd never forget her last words to me,
"You're strong my Madeleine. So strong...stay strong..." Then she'd died and I ran.
I walked back into the Chagny's home with Deirdre tired from walking and from all of the memories. Everyone at the opera was on a break until after the New Year, so we didn't have to be at rehearsal this evening. The house was filled with voices that I recognized as Charles's aunt, uncle and cousins. Silently I ran the gifts up to the room I had inhabited and Deirdre and I made our way into the sitting room. She blushed deeply when she saw Daniel and he looked away shyly. I smirked as did Charles whose eyes had lit up when we walked in. I flushed, remembering the scene in my room the day before. So close I had been to jumping off the edge and so relieved had I been when Therese had interrupted. I didn't dare think of what could have happened between us. Not when those light green eyes were so enchanting...
Everyone had turned to look at me and Deirdre, following Charles and Daniel's eyes. Raoul stood coming to give me a quick kiss on the cheek in his sweet, fatherly way.
"Take care of everything?" He asked me and I nodded as he gestured for me to sit next to Charles on the small love seat. Deirdre sat in the chair near where Daniel was sitting on the floor. I smiled at his sister, Camille, who returned the gesture before turning back to her mother.
"Maman, just because all of the silly society fluff is going to this masquerade ball doesn't mean I want to go..." She stated, playing with the sleeve of her dress.
"But Millie, darling, Gabriel is a nice young man and you two used to get along so well..." Charles's aunt replied, patting her daughter's arm.
"That was before he...he became everyone's favorite bachelor. He's a playboy Maman, and I certainly don't have time for womanizers." Daniel laughed at her.
"Oh come off it Millie, the man's finally come out of his shell...just because he isn't terribly shy anymore, doesn't mean he isn't the same person."
"Whose side are you on anyway?" Camille asked her brother, glaring at him. Her father touched her cheek.
"Millie...you're sixteen. No one expects you to be an adult already. Go out and have some fun...you deserve it." He urged and she threw her hands up in the air.
"Fine! I'll go...but that doesn't mean I'll enjoy myself." She sulked and strode out of the room quickly. Charles started to get up, but I stopped him.
"I'll go...maybe if she talked to someone near her own age..." I said and Camille's mother nodded. I found her in the library, trailing her finger along the mantle of the large fireplace.
"Someone sure did a number on you, didn't they?" I said from the doorway and she spun around.
"Oh! You scared me!" She said, surprised and I joined her near the fireplace.
"Do you want to talk about it Camille?" I asked, offering her friendship and she seemed to think a moment before shaking her head.
"No...you wouldn't understand..." She muttered and I sat down in an overstuffed armchair.
"You think so? How about I start...my mother died when I was six and I ran away so they wouldn't take me to an orphanage." She turned to stare at me in disbelief.
"I'm sorry...I couldn't imagine losing a parent. What of your father?" She said and I shook my head.
"I don't know who he is..." I replied as she sat in the other armchair. "Nor do I care for that matter..." I added and she nodded, sighing.
"I was very close with a teacher at my school...we would talk about music and art, anything really but the relationship was strictly teacher student. He was a younger man, maybe in his early thirties. He was engaged to a beautiful girl and was looking forward to starting a family with her. One day during class, the headmaster of the school asked to talk to him. Class was dismissed, but I stayed. He was crying...I asked what was wrong he told me Rachele had been murdered. I wasn't thinking...he was my friend and I wanted to help him, so I hugged him. One of the girls in my class had forgotten something in class and came back into the classroom to find me holding him. She walked back out without a word, but the next day, my teacher was gone and people were whispering about us...Gabriel was the only one I could talk to ever since I was young, but all of a sudden, the next time I saw him he had a different girl on his arm each night. It bothered me. Like he didn't have time for me anymore...I was alone."
"Camille I..." I started but she held up her hand.
"Don't pity me...please. I've gotten over it...It's funny, you know? You try to do something nice for someone, show a little compassion, and it blows up in your face...now, because I treated someone like a human being, that man will probably never teach again. He lost his love, his job, his whole life because of me." She looked miserable, and terribly afraid, so I did what anyone would do and I hugged her. I knew how that felt, to be alone...an outcast. It made me feel more normal to know that even the wealthy had their problems.
"Camille...listen to me...give Gabriel a second chance as your friend...good friends are hard to come by...trust me I should know. And maybe I'm not in the same class as you, but I want you to know if you ever want to talk, I'm here for you. I know what it's like to be alone." She nodded her thanks and hugged me back, feeling like a little girl as I held her. "Does your mother know?" I asked her, and she shook her head.
"She's heard the stories, but has never pried about it." I sighed.
"I think you should talk to her...it will help. I wish I had a mother to talk to."
Camille stood and smiled at me.
"Thanks you know...for everything. Rosie doesn't have time for me anymore and Genevieve, well...she's too young. She hates me anyway." I smiled.
"No she doesn't. She tries to emulate your every move..." I said, thinking of the little girl in the other room with her straight brown hair and bright blue eyes.
"You think?" Camille said, with a small twinkle in her blue-green eyes and I nodded.
"She adores you Camille, it's so obvious. Maybe it's because I don't have any real family, but I definitely can see it." The shorter girl hugged me again tightly.
"Thank you Madeleine." She said and I laughed.
"You can call me Maddie." She smiled, making me envious of her beauty which was so angelic in a pure, heavenly way with her long golden hair and luminescent eyes and just a touch of a peach glow to her cheeks.
"Call me Millie..." She said and I couldn't suppress a giggle.
"Maddie and Millie...an interesting team."