A/N: Sorry for the delay! I'm currently enjoying my last vacation this summer in Italy so I've barely touched Coda. But since I'm 3 chapters ahead of this one I thought I could at least give you an update today.
Thank you for your encouraging words on the last chapter. Rupture was particularly challenging to write and I'm glad it was received well. Also thanks and welcome to the people who recently favourited this and hit the follow button. I'd love to hear from you but am glad you're just there to read as well!
Chapter 6:
That evening, a selection of candelabras were burning bright in the grey sandstone building of the Rue de Vaugirard, their warmer light thought to be more inviting for the guest that was due to arrive any moment. To mark the occasion, since it was the first visitor Julianne had chosen to entertain since Édouard's funeral, Babette had laid out a dress of dark but shinier fabric.
"Suzanna is busy putting the finishing touches to the dining room, Madame," she informed her, standing at hand to help adjust the garment if necessary.
"That's very kind of her," Julianne acknowledged, closing the collar of the dress with a brooch. "I shall be certain to reward her for her additional work."
"Oh, that's hardly necessary, Madame," Babette chuckled good-naturedly. "The food has already been prepared and she is happy to do it."
"No matter," Julianne decided kindly but firmly and turned around to face her maid's critical eye, "I was saddened to let some of you go after Édouard's passing and I am not blind to the efforts each and every one of you left in our employ has put in since. You might be too kind to mention it, but I would hardly qualify as a good mistress if I did not acknowledge it."
"Oh Madame, truly, it is an honour as well as our duty. You have always treated us with the utmost kindness and, if I may speak so freely, we all feel Monsieur Doucet's absence and have made it our mission to look after you with as much care as he had demonstrated all these years."
Babette's passionate words, full of fondness and dedication, made her heart ache and her mind wander to that morning in the manager's office when her father's searching letter had caused her to publicly lose control over her emotions. Granted, nobody had been present to witness this display but that did not take away from the helplessness that had stolen into her soul since.
She hated that Babette's well-meaning sentiment now reminded her of words that had been anything but; however, she refused to let her father's insistence - that she abandon life in France and return to the safe bosom of the family- persuade her into dismissing her maid yet again. Too relieved she was that Babette seemed to have found back to her old, conversational nature.
The tolling of the doorbell penetrated the fog of her thoughts so slowly that she at first did not make the connection between its sound and the arrival of her guest. Only Babette's sudden startled movements brought her back to the present where she silently allowed the maid to fuss over her until she seemed content.
"You look beautiful, Madame," was her cue to rise but still she did so rather dazed, using the length of her descent to the floor below to remind her of the focus of the evening. After all, she hadn't invited Madame Giry for a pleasant round of chit-chat.
When she reached the dining room, she found the stern woman already seated at the table. It wasn't that Julianne had expected her to be openly snooping through the memorabilia on display everywhere, but she also hadn't expected her to take such an interest in her soup dish.
"Forgive me for keeping you waiting," she spoke up softly and gave Madame Giry's hand a squeeze when she rose to her feet to greet her. "It has been some time since I last entertained."
"Loss requires all kinds of adjustments," Madame Giry offered and waited for her host to take the lead before she seated herself again.
"I was positively surprised to find your letter, Madame," Julianne began, taking a hesitant sip from her wine glass, "though I am just as curious as to what caused this change of mind."
The woman did not seem offended by her direct approach of the matter, yet a nervousness stole of her features whose subtle nuances Julianne had already noted at their last meeting.
"There was an incident I witnessed a while ago…shortly before your late husband was appointed the new manager."
She abruptly fell silent when a figure appeared in the doorway. Julianne hadn't noticed it at first, had been so busy holding her breath at the impending revelation. But when Madame Giry failed to continue talking, she turned her head to see what had caused the pause.
"Soup, Madame?" Suzanna inquired carefully, pressing two mitts against the bowl that was sure to singe her fingers.
"Yes, of course, silly girl. Just put it down before you hurt yourself!" Julianne instructed and glanced at Madame Giry to signal that she understood her reservations.
As the silence stretched on, the young girl began spooning soup in the little ceramic bowls in front of them, her hurried glances giving away the curiosity with which she viewed this encounter.
"Do close the door on your way out," Julianne told her gently as she was walking to the door and with a curtsy and one last intrigued glance, she hurried out. "An incident, Madame?" Julianne then prompted again, watching her spoon submerge beneath the surface of the soup, hoping that her own curiosity was not quite so apparent.
"Yes," Madame Giry's eyes were fixed on the dish in front of her, "perhaps you had heard of the doomed Faust performance in which our stage was suddenly plunged into darkness and a counterweight fell and crushed a woman in the audience?"
Julianne swallowed and made sure a piece of potato bobbed off her spoon so that there was only broth left when she tasted the soup.
"I must admit I hadn't," she then quietly replied. "Édouard had been a frequent visitor to the Palais Garnier but just as often his work required him to travel. And in his absence I much preferred the company of books to that of music."
Madame Giry nodded calmly but still refused to touch her own food.
"Messieurs Richard and Moncharmin made sure to minimise publicity about events such as those but the Sûreté came to investigate nonetheless. They dealt with the body, of course, and insisted to take a look at all the counterweights, including the fallen one, to make sure there'd be no repeat of the dangerous accident." She paused, looking towards the covered window, her eyes glazing over as if she was focusing on some mesmerising spot in the distance. "I happened to be in the corridor when the managers ushered the chief into their office." Her voice sounded different, harder and tired. "It appeared the fall of the counterweight hadn't been an accident. Somebody, so the chief insisted, had been meddling with the hydrogen pumps, forcing the black-out…and an explosive device had been found in the rubble near the counterweight. Not a day later, the managers decided to appoint a new successor so that they could go into early retirement."
"The ghost did this?" Julianne asked darkly and Madame Giry nodded, without tearing her eyes away from the covered window.
"They believed so…"
"And you, Madame Giry?" Julianne probed.
"I did not want to believe it. The Opera Ghost had always been kind to me. He had tasked me with handling his salary. He never threatened me, he hardly spoke to me and on the few occasions that he did it was with the voice and the conduct of a true gentleman. He alone saw my Meg's talent and helped her gain a better spot in the corps de ballet. Oh how can I possibly betray him now?"
The dismay, the reality of her actions, seemed to catch up with her so suddenly that she buried her face in her hands, and although her sense of duty compelled her to steer the conversation onto other matters, Julianne knew it was important not to let this matter go just yet.
"Perhaps because you sense, just as I have done, that he can be a dangerous man."
Madame Giry touched her usually so neat hair with shaky hands and exhaled. "As long as we appease him, we won't have to fear him."
"But his demands are ludicrous!" Julianne exclaimed angrily. "And they will cost this opera house…No, Madame Giry, I do not plan on complying with a lunatic. The only way of finding him, of stopping him hurting another person, however, is by learning more about him. Is there anything else you can tell me? What about Christine Daaé?"
Whatever little colour had been left in Madame Giry's aging cheeks quickly disappeared as she heard the girl's name.
"I do not know for certain, Madame. I thought he had seen her talent, just like Meg's…it was her who encouraged Christine to sing for the Opera Ghost, you see. And just like that he heard her, he taught her and he helped her be noticed by the management."
Julianne nodded wordlessly, though her mind was busy pondering which back-handed methods he'd applied to twist that poor girl into position.
"It was her…" Madame Giry was whispering now. "The counterweight, the light, all for her. None of us noticed this at the time…once the chaos broke loose there wasn't time…we didn't think… When you demanded to see me in your office last week, Meg grew suspicious. She asked why I had been called, if I had heard from Him again. And when I confessed she announced me mad…told me what Christine had told her in a correspondence after her disappearance. The ghost had taken her that night. Why, I cannot say but Meg insisted we had all been fortunate to escape with our lives intact."
The same feeling of dread that had overcome her when she had heard the deranged laughter at the premiere of Robert le Diable, befell her now again and she eyed the woman in front of her with some concern. His obsession with Christine Daaé, however wrong and misguided, at least offered an explanation, but the situation now was different. Without an explanation to understand him, without a motive, he was even more unpredictable.
The only positive she could find was that he was human in as much as that he loved, ached and bled just like the next person. He wasn't invincible and, provided one invested a bit of time and patience, could even be caught making a mistake.
"You have been most helpful, Madame Giry. But I must ask another favour of you."
The older woman tiredly lifted her head and raised an eyebrow in question.
"I shall write a note to your daughter. Promise me you'll pass it on?"
"You will not put her in danger?" Madame Giry asked in return.
"Not in any more than she's already in," Julianne promised, eating two more spoonfulls of soup before pushing the dish away and rising to her feet.
She strode across the room and to the writing desk her husband had regularly used, extracted a piece of paper and began writing the message. When she was done, she folded it up, placed it in an envelope and handed it to Madame Giry who also seemed to have lost her appetite.
Unaware, Suzanna appeared to collect their dishes and serve them their main of roast beef, potatoes and green beans. The silence that engulfed them was tense and uncomfortable yet Julianne made no attempt to fill it. Her head was buzzing with practicalities such as the possible exit routes the ghost could be taking day after day, and the precautions she had to take if she wanted to catch him. The size and danger of the endeavour suddenly opened up in front of her like a dizzying chasm that she could only hope to cross if she trusted herself and did not allow the winds to rattle her.
"Madame Giry?" she asked suddenly, her face scrunching into a frown. "Did you say you had heard from Him again?"
"Yes," the older woman admitted, lowering her cutlery, "it was nothing short of ordinary. He had included a note he needed me to pass on to a messenger."
"And did you comply?" Julianne asked, still puzzled.
"Of course, I could see no harm in doing so."
"No…" she hummed, pondering the contents of the letter.
But any questions that developed in her head vanished when Madame Giry suddenly rose to her feet. "Forgive me but I cannot stay any longer."
Slowly following suit, Julianne nodded in understanding and guided her out of the room and downstairs into the yard. Of course she had hoped her guest would stay longer so that any questions that might arise over the course of the evening could be answered, but it was hardly appropriate to force her to stay.
"Allow Alexandre to drive you home?" she offered by gesture of good will.
"That's quite alright," the other woman demurred, clearly in a rush to leave.
"No, I insist, Madame. I have caused you great upset and I do hope you'll forgive me."
Perhaps it was the surprise that motivated Madame Giry to accept her offer and suddenly grasp her hands.
"May your husband watch over you," she said with emotion before making her way to the carriage.