The Count's arrest still made headlines several weeks later. Once he'd put two and two together and realized the only possible culprit who could have made off with his watch was the naïve young ballerina he'd set out to seduce, it had taken all of Darius's subtlety to keep him from announcing it – a deal which ended with life imprisonment instead of the death sentence for the bamboozled Count.
Meanwhile, that very ballerina was just glad to put behind her that unpleasant first assignment, and proud she'd succeeded. Madame Giry worried in a light way that the girl's head would swell to popping the way Meg carried herself proud like a peacock the days after.
However, as usual Meg soon hopped onto other subjects to keep her busy, such as her growing fame in La Belle et la Bete. The ballet was the opera's biggest success since Hannibal, and Meg was quickly becoming a household name in Paris.
One evening three weeks after the Count's arrest, Meg sat reading aloud a serial to Erik. Au Bonheur des Dames, the eleventh novel in Emile Zola's Rougon-Macquart series, was uncharacteristically high-brow for Meg's tastes, who tended to favor more action-driven penny dreadfuls. Meg was drawn to the lead character Denise, however, and her struggles to make a living and find romance in the world of retail.
Erik ceased providing excuses for visiting the Giry flat. Meg was eager not to destroy the sense of excitement and strange serenity whenever Erik's troubled eyes stared out of his mask when she opened the door to him. So for once, she kept her many questions to herself. She simply played hostess as she would anyone else who would come to make calls.
"Ooh! Listen to this part here, I like this," she said excitedly, losing herself in the story. Erik, meanwhile, only vaguely heard the words. He was glad Anahid was busy rehearsing with the ballet chorus while the leads rested. That sharp woman would surely recognize how lost and pathetic he was, staring and staring at her daughter.
Erik saw Persia in Meg's eyes. But not the Persia of the little Sultana, of Naser's weakness, of the maze of mirrors. But Persia of the evening landscapes, the sunsets and the incense, the healed bird's beautiful song. The chorus of peasant girls' giggles as they made their way back to the village with the laundry, old women affectionately admonishing their grandchildren as they scampered in late for evening supper. That was the Persia in Meg's eyes.
She was so small, so quaint, so fiery and full of life.
And once again the most terrifying and heartbreaking realization of all kept haunting Erik:
She treated him as she would anyone else.
He'd become so used to keeping her and everyone else in thrall. How many times had he heard her cry out in equal parts fear and wild curiosity, "He's here! The Phantom of the Opera"?
He was accustomed to appearing something far more than human. The Angel. The Phantom. Never just Erik anymore.
Yet now he was. In her eyes – she, always the most frightened! – he was Erik.
The feeling warmed him like nothing else.
Meg stopped short at the knock on her door.
Erik cringed when she answered and announced, "Oh! Monsieur Marcus!"
Him again.
Officer Stephen Marcus was a frequent caller here as well. He also initially tried keeping up the pretense of visiting for professional instead of personal reasons. Following up on the Count's arrest, giving her further pointers on the life of a spy – all this and more he plied for reasons to visit when he knew she was not rehearsing.
Whenever Erik was present, these visits would deteriorate into the two men glaring at each other solemnly as Meg sat in the middle, chatting away. She sensed there was tension between the two, but she didn't dream it involved her.
As Meg looked at Monsieur Marcus now, she saw there was a hard sort of determination in his face. "Won't you come in?"
"Actually, mademoiselle, there is something I'd like to ask you in private." Meg fidgeted awkwardly a bit, glancing out of the corner of her eyes at Erik. To save her from embarrassment, Stephen hurried to add, "Perhaps you'd like to join me on a walk outside? What I have to discuss with you won't last long."
Meg looked once more to Erik. He was inscrutable. "Um, Mother should be back soon," she offered him.
A slow incline of Erik's head was his only answer.
Meg shrugged to Marcus, grinning. "I'll grab my hat!"
As they walked outside the opera house, Meg Giry made a pretty but decidedly inelegant figure in her childish blue and white checkered dress with bonnet. She looked like a child's doll; she spoke in a voice so thin and girlish it bordered on tinny.
Yet to him, there was nothing on Earth prettier, more appealing. That voice, which might have slightly grated on a lesser man, was so lively and familiar.
He swallowed drily.
It was just before sunset. The streets were fairly empty by the opera house, which the officer of the secret police was glad of.
He fidgeted with his tie.
This seasoned man about town was as nervous and unsure as a maiden on her wedding day.
He tried to conjure up images of any woman in his past he'd had dalliances with. He could scarcely recall a single face. When he thought of them, he remembered only dull descriptors, as if reading them in a book: one tall and snide, one flirtatious and buxom, another mysterious and distant. Good sorts, all; he wasn't a judgmental bloke, given all he'd done in life.
Yet when he thought of Meg, he saw her whole: in the present, radiantly colored, face cheerful and laughing.
How, how did a ballet star of the Paris Opera House remain so damned unaffected? Unglamorous, really!
Unglamorous but endearing, adorable….
Meg, meanwhile, eyed him with curiosity. He'd annoyed her in the past with his arrogance and mocking ways, but his skill and helpfulness had softened her outlook toward him. She'd never seen him so…ill at ease, however. She was used to seeing him suave and detached. Now, now he was chewing his bottom lip and drumming his fingers together behind his back, eyes wide and staring at anything but her as they strolled the sidewalk.
Meg made a few rudimentary comments about the weather. He hummed in acknowledgement. She mentioned a humorous column she'd read about one of the Count's failed peccadillos that had come to light since his arrest, concerning a rich older widow he'd courted whose poodle showed his disdain by leaving something for the Count in his slippers. Marcus hummed again.
At her wit's end, Meg at last cut to the chase. "I say, Monsieur Marcus. It's a bit odd to ask someone on a walk to talk something over, then offer nothing but the occasional assenting noise. Don't you think?"
Her bluntness seemed to relax him. He laughed. He shot gleaming blue-green eyes at her, which surprisingly took her breath away a little.
"Do you know what I like about you, Miss Giry?"
"No, what?"
"You are without a doubt the most candid, straightforward little pill I've ever met."
She bristled. "'Little pill?' Why, I" –
He laughed again and took her small gloved hands in his. Despite his amused smile, his voice was so serious and low she shivered. "Don't be mad at me, Miss Giry. Not now. Do you really want to know what I've come to tell you?"
"Yes!"
"Well, more to the point, what I've come to ask you."
Some faint intuition stirred in her breast, causing her heart to beat erratically. "…Yes?"
All amusement faded and what was left was something she never expected to see on his face: lost anxiety. "Will you marry me?"
Her eyes were wide-open circles. Her mouth hanged open.
She - she - received a marriage proposal? From him?
It was like the Vicomte de Valmont asking for her hand!
She blinked idiotically.
"I'm a rough sort, I will admit," he continued. "Not very tame, and I don't expect I ever will be. Never had much stability in my life, or had much want of it. But I'm also the sort who takes what he wants. And I want you." Very softly he added, "I love you."
Meg felt warm all over. Butterflies weren't in her stomach, giant frogs were kicking there instead.
She looked at his beautiful eyes, his crooked nose, his broad shoulders, and his thick dark hair.
She'd never felt so deeply flattered in all her life - outside of her recent theatrical reviews.
To bring a man so different from her – jaded, worldly, and rakish – to such a state was a triumph right next to Monsieur Robard's proud eyes over the conductor's stand.
However, recognizing the gravity written deeply in his features, she felt ashamed of herself for this burst of vanity.
How did…how did she feel about Stephen Marcus? Beyond her amazement that a man of his type should fancy a little dancing rat like her?
This was the crucial question.
He was argumentative but kind; cynical but heroic, in his own way. A dashing mix of contradictions.
A challenge. A bit of a mystery. Just what Meg always desired in life. She'd simply never considered she'd find it in a man….
In fact, she'd never even thought of herself as a wife!
Thinking of it now brought a dull thud to her racing heart.
A wife. Settling down. A quiet house somewhere with a ball of yarn and making sure supper was ready on time –
Meg shuddered at the image.
When she thought of the future, she saw dancing, encores for enthusiastic crowds, just making the train to tour in different countries. Marriage? That seemed to her a dead end to those dreams.
But Stephen Marcus…he said he wasn't a tame man. Domesticity wasn't apparently his forte, either.
So, yes, maybe….
Suddenly in her mind she saw a glimmer of mask, a sad brown eye, a wild blue eye, and two sinewy hands clutching his deformity in mental agony.
Another mystery, another challenge, but someone she felt she could never lead by hand to redemption, yet she wanted to be present anyway when he did redeem himself.
Erik.
She opened and closed her mouth, color gone from her cheeks.
Marcus steeled himself when he saw pain in her eyes.
"I see my proposal is not entirely welcome," he said in a carefully composed voice.
His hope heightened just a bit at the touch of tenderness in her eyes now. "I…it's not that! I simply don't know what to say."
He opened his mouth to speak, but she stopped him, lightly touching his wrist. "Wait, please. Let me think." She breathed in, then continued. "I'm not ready for marriage yet, monsieur. I've no doubt any such marriage with you would be…fun," a mischievous small smile appeared on her face. "But it's still not something I can bind myself to yet."
He'd never begged a woman before, and he wasn't planning to now, yet he couldn't help but press – "But someday, maybe? In the future? You might…consider me?"
He would remember that dreamy, matter-of-fact little gaze she gave him for the rest of his life. "I don't know, monsieur. I truly don't know."
A breeze stirred them.
From the terrace above, Erik watched behind the gargoyle as Marcus inclined his head with a rueful smile. Meg put her hand in his arm and they turned to go back inside.
How history almost repeats itself, he thought with self-loathing. Here he was, perched behind a gargoyle again, listening in on every word between the woman he obsessed over and her admirer.
There was such a great difference here, however. With Christine and Raoul, the heartbreak had been severe, yes, but there was a touch of poetry about it, too – a kind of martyred grandeur. He'd had rage and a misplaced sense of betrayal to comfort him.
Now – now the pain was plain and fierce, with no self-righteous indignation to soften the blow. As Marcus proposed and Meg considered, he could scarcely breathe. With his feelings for Meg still so unsure aside from his obvious infatuation, this proposal was like an added gale of wind to a ship already caught in a whirlpool.
Meg and another man –
There was a queasiness to the idea. Little Meg. Of the quick dainty steps, frank courage, and untamed curiosity: that little Meg.
Where he could barely stand seeing Christine in the vicomte's arms, his stomach turned at the mere thought of Meg in the same position.
Her tentative refusal did little to abate the sensation; if anything, he was on tenterhooks more than ever. Unlike how he first handled Christine's relationship with Raoul, Erik knew he must accept the inevitable should Meg say yes to Marcus. He'd simply have to. The idea of terrorizing her as he did Christine left him with a terrible taste in his mouth.
Not that Meg deserved better than Christine, he was quick to assure himself. Christine with her angelic compassion had simply shown him that was not the way, and Meg's happy comfort with him as he was made him loathe to betray that confidence even more than when he betrayed Christine's with the phony angel persona.
So if she had said yes, he would force himself to swallow the bitter pill.
However, as it stood now –
The uncertainty was brutal.
Would she ever accept Marcus? Tomorrow, years from now? Or never? Would Erik ever be able to rest from the worry?
If she'd said yes it would have been like burning off a wound: searing and hellish, but quick and clean.
This way it was like an untreated laceration that would fester until he might just succumb to the slow anguish.
A/N: I must admit the shameful truth that I have not read the Rougon-Macquart stories. When I looked up popular French serials from that time, this particular story sounded just up Meg's alley, that's all. Maybe I'll look into actually reading it soon.