A/N: Loved your reviews, thank you! Édouard had contracted chicken pox but ended dying of pneumonia, which can be a by-product of chicken pox in adults, especially if they don't rest and continue to exert themselves. In the first chapter, she recalls the pneumonia because it was that final sentence she heard before Édouard passed away. Only when she could access some of the anger she also has, could she allow herself to admit how stupid/ridiculous it was that he'd die of chicken pox. But I appreciate that not being clear enough, so thanks for asking the question. :)
6 chapters left until the end of Part 1! Thanks for sticking with it.
Also thanks to jigokunooujo and Hero15 for hitting the follow/favourite button.
Chapter 13:
He watched her return to the torture chamber where she made her bed on the floor and long after her body had settled down sufficiently enough, he remained on the leather sofa in the sitting room, staring at her sleeping form. How odd that her anger should soothe him in the end, how perplexing that he had not killed her then and there when she had been threatening to break the only instrument still intact, the only instrument that beckoned to him ruthlessly.
Perhaps it was her unpredictability that made her so calming to him. Everything else was nothing more than a painful reminder of the past. Nadir's warning, Moreau's diligent acceptance of a ghost and its power that was reminiscent of Poligny's. All of that had felt so sickeningly familiar, as if the faces had changed but the cycle was always the same.
No wonder then that Christine's voice had arisen from the silence once more, teased and taunted him like a siren waiting for him to drown. He rubbed his fingertips against each other, felt the grooves the strings had left behind. He had silenced her again, smothered her with his anger and Madame Doucet had felt it, responded to it. She had not listened to the piece with awe and objective appreciation, no, she had felt it, every last note of it.
He hadn't expected it to affect her so, he hadn't expected anything when that desire to play had gripped him. But the bottom line was that the music had triggered something in her that she had tried to bury, just as it had forced something out of him that he had been trying to deny.
His thoughts trailed back into his past and the handful of other people he had engaged with. Had they ever truly shared something?
Christine had possessed the same amount of passion for music and the arts, but she had never been his equal because he had not allowed her to be, too great had his fear been that too much freedom would enable her to flee. Now that was a twist of irony he could appreciate far less. Then there were those who had expressed an understanding for his situation, such as Giovanni or Nadir once upon a time, but that still did not compare to the strange moment he had encountered with Madame Doucet tonight.
It was as if, without needing words, she had experienced his very feelings, had given words and actions to them, something that was unprecedented until then. Her susceptibility to music astounded him, primarily because most of the other managers he'd had the misfortune of meeting had shown no signs of interest in or knowledge of opera, not to mention the ones that had been completely tone-deaf. Though, of course, the comparison might be called unjust since the previous managers had not been privy to his music. It was hard imagining anyone unable to appreciate that.
He did appreciate the irony, however, that the woman whose sole presence had felt utterly disruptive the previous night, now turned out to be a source of calmness. Humming pensively to himself, he stretched out on the sofa, crossing one long leg over the other and stared at the three tea cups on the ground. Two visitors in such a short amount of time, was he becoming popular in his old age? His lips quirked into a grin.
As if in response to his silent question and to remind him of her own presence in the house, Ayesha appeared from the bedroom and jumped up onto his lap. He petted her absent-mindedly and reached for the brown paper packet lying on the armrest. Pensively he turned it around in his hands, once in a while casting a glance at Madame Doucet's sleeping figure.
Still, he did not know what to do with this newly-acquired knowledge, but it gripped him with a strange sense of fascination to learn more and to recreate the moment. He pictured himself with all the power of a puppet master, able to manipulate the strings that would prompt this reaction and then that reaction from her. Power was an old friend he easily realised. Sadly for Erik, it was also capable of blinding him to the potential for kinship.
The next morning he awoke in an awkward position on the sofa, his neck stiff and aching. The unopened brown paper packet had slid out of his hands and off his chest into the crack between the seat and the cushion. He picked it up again and returned it to the armrest, fed the cat to silence her noisy calls for attention, washed himself and then the teacups and saucers.
The wrinkled state of his frock vexed him but hopefully he would soon be supplied with a new batch. The loss of the merchant was unfortunate but his courier would surely find him a new one, provided that Madame Giry had found and passed on his note. His fingers halted in the middle of buttoning up a crisp new shirt. Surely she wouldn't dare to disobey his orders?
He considered this possibility carefully, but the more he thought about it the more ludicrous it became. She had not disappointed him in the past and with Madame Doucet in his grasp, she would not try to disappoint him now.
His mind at ease once more, he finished dressing himself and strode back out into the sitting room where Madame Doucet's appearance momentarily caught him off-guard. Christine would not have dared to leave her room, he thought, before reminding himself that he was dealing with someone who had the potential to be strikingly different.
She looked dreadfully tired and unkempt, her hair wild and tangled like a bird's nest, her hands dirty and crusted, her face red, dry and irritated. They watched each other tensely from their respective corners of the room, neither stepping forward nor initiating a conversation, both of them trying to assess the best course of action. Without the fatigue and curiosity that had made the moment of truce possible the previous night, they seemed at a loss of how to relate to one another.
"I acquired food for you yesterday as well as new garments from the costume atelier. Perhaps you would like to wash up and dress yourself before breakfast?"
She sized him up with surprise, then inclined her head and took a careful step forward. Holding her gaze, he indicated his own room. "You will find everything you should require there."
With that he turned away from her and meandered to the samovar to make his first cup of tea. Her presence suddenly felt foreign and uncomfortable again and he cursed the Persian for getting under his skin with his obnoxious mumbling about old times and past actions. Slowly sipping at the hot liquid, he listened to the whisper of garments grazing the floor, the melody of footsteps and sloshing water. It felt odd to imagine that for the majority of people these sounds were part of their daily routine, it felt odd to have someone else live in this house who did not expect him to be all powerful and invincible. It felt odd just being Erik while having someone nearby to witness it.
"Where would you like me to leave my old dress?"
Her voice came from behind him and he slowly set the teacup down on the ground.
"Preferably somewhere on the floor so that it won't dirty anything," he answered guardedly, "I will see to it being burned imminently."
Her hand flew to her mouth in a gesture that betrayed her nervousness.
"Perhaps you oughtn't to dispose of it, Monsieur, my maid would find it most odd should I return without it."
"Does she keep an inventory?" he asked with a chuckle, ignoring the silent question in her previous statement that he had very well perceived.
She wondered if he would ever let her go alive, a question to which he hadn't yet formed an answer himself.
"Yes, she is rather particular."
She offered him a careful smile in return and gently lowered the dark dress onto the floor by the doorway.
"You will find fresh bread and preserves in the cabinet over there," he pointed to the object on which Ayesha had taken a seat.
Then he turned his attention towards the samovar, poured her a fresh cup of tea and listened to her footsteps while she went to retrieve the food.
"She's very beautiful," Madame Doucet spoke up again and he glanced briefly in her direction to smile at Ayesha. "What pretty markings."
He watched her extend a hand towards the cat, braced himself for the vicious attack that was sure to follow and was almost shocked when the feline accepted the light caress.
"Yes, no doubt they would have got her into trouble, had I not found her."
"Monsieur?" she frowned, clutching the toast while stepping closer.
"Someone would most certainly have skinned her and used her fur, Madame," he answered simply.
She had the good grace to pale and then glanced nervously between the brown paper packet on the armrest and the spot on the sofa he was currently occupying.
"She was a street cat then?"
"Yes," he nodded and shifted a little bit to the right to grant her more space.
"We had many of those in Bristol," she sighed, finally sinking down, "they were frequently drowned in the harbour. I'm glad your cat did not meet a similarly terrible fate."
"I have no respect for people who think animals are beneath them, as if they had no soul. Drowning a cat…humankind at its most atrocious, I am certain."
He caught her curious gaze and returned it with a dark one of his own which thankfully made her avert her eyes and focus on the food in her hand instead. Silence, uncomfortable and lingering, fell between them and filled him with insufferable tension. All the lessons about hospitality and courtesy Madeleine had taught him, compelled him to engage her in polite conversation, yet he knew, of course, that doing so would be utterly absurd.
"I understand that I am not meant to leave, Monsieur." He slowly tilted his head towards her. "But I was hoping you'd allow me to pass my time somehow."
One eyebrow quirked up beneath the mask. Was she trying to play him for a fool? Or was she being serious?
"If you wish to make yourself useful, you could always tidy up my house," he answered wryly, testing her reaction. Her placid smile only irritated him further.
"If you wish I could try, and perhaps in return I could request a book or two?"
First a nurse then a housekeeper. The notion was so ludicrous that it made him laugh which, he was glad to see, still made her shiver.
"If that is how you wish to spend your time," he granted at last, rising to his feet. "I shall fetch some books from the library for you."
She dutifully inclined her head and avoided his gaze which made him chuckle once again.
"Wishing to spend one's last hours tidying, how very amusing."