A/N: Thank you so much for the wonderful reviews – I'm glad you guys liked that! :D
And now...
III
.
The madman managed to keep his seat while his ghost stallion dropped to all fours – then swore viciously when the great beast reared a second time. Had he no head, Christine would be convinced that she had slipped into the illusory town of Sleepy Hollow and encountered the Headless Horseman. That legend had been in a book at Greenwich Hall, the text of which she'd been unable to read as a small girl, but she had observed its frightful illustrations. They had reminded her of the spine-chilling tale of the Harvest Monster that her cousins enjoyed taunting her with as a child.
Wide-eyed, Christine scooted back on her hips and hands. To her chagrin, her cloak caught under the heel of her shoe, and she did not travel far.
"What the devil are you doing down there?"
Devil…yes, the analogy fit him well.
The demon phantom regarded her darkly once his horse was under control. To her utmost shock, from those same lips came a cadence of velvet-soft words in an exotic sounding dialect as he worked to calm his horse, patting its neck with a black-gloved hand.
She stared in mute astonishment, disbelieving that such a beautiful, silvery voice could issue forth from the same tongue that had cursed her so harshly. And why in God's name did he wear a mask? She knew in truth the apparition was a man, not some demonic fairy of lore, but surely he wasn't a highwayman, setting out for the night in his dastardly plot to rob from the hapless who traveled through the countryside in their fine coaches...
Yet why wouldn't he be? From what little she'd seen, he certainly fit the role of a villain in disguise.
Noticing her fixed attention to his face, he turned his angry focus back on her, his scowl thunderous, his eyes glinting in what little moonlight there was.
"Have you no tongue in your head? Speak, woman! Or are you a night wraith sent out to bedevil my horse?"
She blinked with astonishment that they had shared a similar thought, though his was most absurd – surely it was he who was the wraith! Did he not ride the devil's own stallion? And was it not she who sat trembling on the ground?
"I fell." An inane remark, but her mind felt numb with what to say, much less how to think it.
An impatient sound, between a growl and a snort, issued from his throat. "And so, is it your intent to remain seated in the middle of the road the entire night?"
His question, posed more as a command, was the impetus needed to propel Christine to scramble to her feet, albeit awkwardly, at the same time she noticed his hat on the ground. Plucking it up, she dusted the light colored dirt off the black crown with her still shaking fingers and felt a wave of remorse to note the wide brim of the fedora was badly creased. She winced to realize his horse must have trodden on it, and how frightfully close she had come to the stallion having trodden on her.
Suppressing every taut nerve in her body that told her to run fast and far and have nothing more to do with either of them, she nervously approached the two beasts and handed the hat back up to the one who spoke. Even this close, he remained in shadow, difficult to see well.
The masked man took his fedora without a word, his frown deep and apt at divulging his thoughts.
"I'm sorry about your hat," she said at last and winced at just how foolish she sounded.
He expelled a heavy breath. "Madame, if you cannot use the good sense I would hope you were born with, then do me the courtesy to cease from prowling about the countryside at night. Next time you might not be so fortunate."
With those clipped but silken words, he dug his booted heels into the horse's flanks and was off in a blur of ghostly white and ghoulish black.
Feeling unjustly slighted, Christine whipped around in the direction she'd come, staring at his departing cloaked figure, her mouth open wide in shock.
Never mind that his form of address was incorrect or that he had not bothered to find out otherwise; he'd spoken to her as if she were nothing more than an imprudent child out wandering alone in the darkness! Could he not see that she traveled with baggage? Her baggage…
Looking anxiously around, Christine spotted her valise where she had dropped it at the edge of the road when she went in search of her runaway peach.
Alright, so he couldn't tell that she was a weary traveler abandoned at the fork of an unfamiliar road. That gave him no cause to treat her so boorishly – she certainly did not intend for his horse to fly into a panic or his hat to get trampled. His beast had mashed her peach to a pulp as well, yet she still managed to respond with civility and kindness. Why, he had not even inquired after the state of her health, though she had fallen directly across his path…
Christine sighed and dusted the back of her skirts off to the best of her ability before resuming her journey on foot. The unwelcome recollection of the dour, masked stranger relentlessly crowded into her mind. She took scant notice of her hazy surroundings or the rasping screech of night insects, for the moment forgetting her childish dread of the dark - so concentrated was she on her upsetting encounter with the devil rider.
x
When she cleared the top of a low hill and came suddenly upon Manoir de Thornfield looming up from the mist in the distance, Christine gasped in nervous wonder, nearly dropping her valise.
Never had she seen so enormous a manor, so impressive a dwelling – certainly larger than Greenwich Hall! It must be the size of a castle, though she had never seen a true castle, either, only dreamt of them, with her imagination as a guide, fed by the delightful stories of fantasy she'd read and illustrations penned.
Twin turrets with conical tops flanked the stone edifice, which was a light gray color in the moonlight and appeared at least four stories tall, bearing windows too numerous to count. A few on the main floor spilled the welcome glow of lamplight onto the grounds, while the arched and rectangular panes of the upper floors were a dull and unwelcome slate black in direct counterpoint to their cheerier neighbors.
Christine chided her fanciful mind and took the tree-lined path up to a circular dirt drive and a series of steps that ended in huge twin doors. Perhaps, arriving as a servant, she should locate a back entrance. But she was too exhausted to hunt the walls of the massive edifice for another door. And so, taking a shaky breath of resolve, she lifted the lion's head knocker and rapped five times.
It seemed a small eternity before the great door was at last opened by a young uniformed maid. Christine asked for M. Fairfax, how the correspondence was signed, and was led to a small back parlor lit solely by a low fire. There a plump, matronly woman in a black dress and white muslin apron sat in a rocker, a golden tabby nestled comfortably on her lap. The cat looked up at Christine with baleful green-gold eyes. The woman looked at her in question. Gray sausage curls peeked from beneath her white frilled cap.
"May I help you?"
"I am Christine Daaé. I believe I'm expected."
The woman eyed her up and down in uncertainty. "You answered the advertisement? You seem terribly young for a governess."
Christine expected that. No matter that she was nineteen, soon to be twenty, her countenance was often misleading. At least her form had filled out in all the womanly places and was better suited to her age, thin though it was.
"I have spent the past year and a half at Lindenwood Institution as a teacher to sixty-four young girls. I assure you, Madame, that I am well qualified to instruct one of them."
The woman chuckled at her solemn words, much to Christine's astonishment, and set the cat on the floor, rising from her chair to approach. Madame looked her over from head to toe then nodded.
"Adrienne is unlike other girls her age, as you will soon discover. At present she's upstairs sleeping. You will meet her tomorrow."
"Your daughter is…difficult?" Christine probed gently. "I assure you I've had experience with difficult children."
"Oh – Adrienne isn't my daughter. I am Madame Fairfax, the housekeeper at Thornfield." She took up a candlestick and lit it. "Come, I'll show you to your room."
Led back to the front foyer, Christine had a vague impression of dark scrolled woodwork, with few gas lamps lit along the stairwell, as she trudged behind Madame Fairfax along a staircase that wound upward to the second landing. The housekeeper led the way and opened a door at the far end of the corridor then turned back to look at Christine with some concern.
"Goodness child, I trust the journey wasn't too difficult. You sound winded, as though you walked the entire way here."
"That wouldn't be far from the truth, but only as far as the fork in the road."
Christine studied the room of chartreuse, burgundy, and gold furnishings that held a bed larger than she had ever slept in, a dresser with a mirror, a huge wardrobe, and a colorful rug laid out in front of a small hearth.
Surely, there had been some mistake…
"This is where I'm to sleep?" she asked, unable to mask her astonishment. She had been prepared for a servants' wing with cramped space – not the decadent luxury of a guest chamber.
"Oui. Your quarters are close to that of Mademoiselle Adrienne's. Tell me, why did the coach not bring you directly to the manor? At least the driver should have taken you to the inn, so that our driver could be sent for to collect you."
Christine would rather put the tedious incident behind her as nothing could be accomplished by drudging up an accounting of her small woes. Recalling her unnerving encounter with the masked man, she was of a mind to relate the near catastrophe and hopefully clear up the mystery, but thought better of it. No sense laying out her blunders, one by one, and making a worse impression. Though she didn't believe herself to be entirely at fault in the matter of the phantom madman. Besides, another question niggled at her mind that begged an explanation.
"Madame Fairfax, if you are the housekeeper here, who then is my employer?"
"That would be the Maestro."
"The Maestro?" Christine's brows arched faintly at the rather bizarre title.
"The master of Thornfield – Maestro is how he prefers to be addressed. He gave me leave to put the advertisement in the paper for a governess." Mrs. Fairfax spoke as she bustled about, turning down the bed. "He doesn't make his permanent home here, hasn't for some time. But you are fortunate – he's just returned from Paris, though has retired to his rooms for the evening. You will meet with him tomorrow. Now, would you like a cup of tea to warm you? Perhaps a nice bowl of soup? I have some freshly made."
Unaccustomed to such thoughtfulness, Christine did not immediately reply.
"Thank you, no, I think I would prefer to retire. It's been a trying journey." At the moment exhaustion trumped hunger.
The kindly woman nodded and moved to the door. "Breakfast is at seven. We will go over your daily schedule then."
With the room to herself, Christine cast a curious glance at the walls of flocked paper and set her valise on the bed, pulling from it what she would need for the night. Removing her dress, she laid it over a damask-covered chair that sat by a hearth, the presence of which assured Christine that once winter's chill set in, she would slumber in warmth.
She pulled her wrapper on over her chemise and sat before the oval mirror, curious to be given one. She had seen her reflection before, of course, in the handheld mirror she purchased in town shortly after becoming a teacher, along with a matching hairbrush. Vanities, surely, which is why she'd kept both well hidden, though once she graduated from student to teacher, the staff had been less strict in denying her privileges.
Letting down her hair from its pins, she unbraided the thick plait and set about brushing the curls that fell to the middle of her back. Once the severe Madame Dartmeir left the institution in Christine's seventh year there, her hair again grew with the passage of months into years, and no other instructor denied her its length.
Perhaps it was folly, though she wouldn't call it vain, but once she brushed the ringlets to a glossy mantle about her shoulders, she chose to leave her hair down, instead of again braiding the locks into their usual plait. It was such a small thing, but it was freedom, and she relished its gift. On the practical side, it was also warm, and she never planned to suffer another cold night.
An odd twist of her insides, a churning sensation that she was being watched, led her to spin about in her chair to scan the room.
The chamber was as empty as before, and she clucked under her breath at her foolishness to jump at phantom shadows. A painting, one of two hanging in the room, caught her eye, and she studied it from where she sat. At first glance, it appeared to be the sea before a storm, as observed from dry land, but with the subtle use of indigo and white, a more chilling scenario appeared to present itself in the oils…
Before she could rise from her chair to satisfy her curiosity and inspect the artwork more closely, the door creaked open. She swung her head around in alarm.
A young girl stood on the threshold, peering back over her shoulder before slipping inside and again shutting the door. Clearly she had just scrambled from bed, her little feet bare, her small body clad in a long white nightdress. With hair long, dark and braided, and eyes almost black, she stared at Christine.
This then must be her new charge.
"You're the new governess?" the girl asked, her tone somewhat imperious.
Christine decided this first time not to scold the child for her discourtesy to enter without first knocking. "I am. You may call me Mademoiselle Daaé. And are you Adrienne?"
"Oui." The girl pursed her lips, keeping Christine under close scrutiny. "You are not so ugly as the others, I suppose – certainly you are much younger. Do you not have to tie rag ribbons in your hair to make all those curls?" A hint of envy crept into her voice. "Hmm. Your eyes are too large for your face – like the tragic heroine of an opera. And why is your skin so pale? Nurse Lita says it is the sun that makes the skin rosy. Do you not like the sun, mademoiselle…?"
Taken aback by the child's scattered questions and ill-mannered comments, Christine regarded Adrienne in silence. None of the girls she'd taught were quite so forward, having the insolence wrung from them in their early days at Lindenwood, and from what she recalled of her own childhood, she had never been so brash, not without just cause.
"The hour is late, and my journey has been long," Christine said with gentle authority. "Tomorrow, at a more reasonable hour, we may resume this conversation and get to know one another. For now, mademoiselle, you should return to bed."
The girl hesitated, as if she might argue, then lightly shrugged in indifference and retraced her steps to the door.
"Mademoiselle Adrienne," Christine said and waited for the girl to look back. "In future, you must always knock when the door is closed before entering someone's chamber. It is considered impolite to do otherwise."
"The Maestro never knocks," the girl informed her with an air of privileged superiority, as if she had every right to be without manners since the owner of the house ignored their principal structure.
"You are not the Maestro."
The girl frowned at that but left without further disagreement, and Christine sighed as the door closed and she was once again left to her thoughts. For the first time since she left Lindenwood she entertained doubt and hoped her slim training would be adequate enough to instruct the audacious Adrienne and please her absent employer.
xXx
After a night of disturbing dreams that she could barely recall upon waking, Christine dressed and hurried downstairs, immediately encountering a servant who told her she was expected in the breakfast room.
Following the maid's directions, Christine found a small room with airy butter-yellow and mint flower-sprigged walls. A large domed window faced east and looked out over a long stretch of lawn edged by forest. Madame Fairfax bustled in with a cheery good morning and instructed Christine to sit. Another maid came in behind her, setting down before Christine a plate with a poached egg, a slice of toast with marmalade and a cup of steaming tea.
The housekeeper drank from her own teacup, urging Christine to eat. Christine folded her hands and bowed her head with a silent and hasty blessing. Famished, she made quick work of her meal while Madame Fairfax instructed her on the details regarding Adrienne's schedule and the hours Christine was to be available.
"You are to have Sundays off and the evenings from supper onward to call your own. You may have free use of the manor to roam, but are not to go near the north wing; that is the Maestro's quarters. It is also advisable that you steer clear of the third level rooms. Many are in sad disrepair." She sighed. "It is unfortunate the Maestro so infrequently visits – if he remained, he could restore this manor to the grandeur Thornfield once knew." She shook her head and took a sip of tea. "Where was I? Oh yes - Mademoiselle Adrienne takes breakfast and supper with her nurse, but will share luncheon with you. While the Maestro remains at Thornfield, you are welcome to eat your supper with me in my parlor or take it in your room, whichever you prefer…"
"May I ask a question?" Christine inserted once the housekeeper finished with her comprehensive list of rules.
"Of course."
"The Maestro – is he not Adrienne's father?" She found it odd that Adrienne had also spoken of him by that name.
Madame Fairfax looked troubled but smiled, and Christine wondered if she imagined any discomfiture.
"Adrienne is his ward. Also, as he is now in residence, you shall instruct Adrienne in her rooms. When the Maestro is away, you may have your sessions in the library if you prefer. Under no circumstances are you to approach the Maestro unless he sends for you. He doesn't like to be disturbed."
Christine mulled over the cautionary words. By all intents and purposes, she was not to go near the Maestro, and she wondered if he disliked those servants he employed or all people in general. Surely, he must care for his ward, to see so well to her needs.
"May I go there to collect books I deem suitable for instruction?"
"Tonight, once the Maestro is in his rooms, you may visit then. Until that time you will need to make do with what you have, since he's to occupy the library the remainder of the day in order to resolve problems with his tenants and see to affairs of the estate."
"Problems?" Christine knew it wasn't her business, but the question slipped out.
"Quite normal, in the order of things. With the neglect the manor has known these ten years past, the troubles have piled layer upon layer."
She sighed again, and no more was said as they finished their tea.
Upstairs, minutes later, Christine entered Mademoiselle Adrienne's rooms, first giving a knock to alert the occupants inside of her presence, also hoping the girl might learn from her better example. Christine did not relish a second incident of nearly jumping out of her skin due to abrupt entrances.
The gloomy, dour child from last night had dissolved into a bright cheery girl who greeted Christine with a wide smile of delight. A ribbon of red prevented her glossy dark hair from falling into her face and wearing a pale cream-colored muslin dress with matching red florets sewn into the puffed sleeves and skirt, the girl reminded Christine of a little princess.
"Ah, there you are, mia governante! Buongiorno. Come stai? Do you know Italian? No. A pity. This is my Nurse Elita. She teaches me the language. I hope the Maestro will be pleased with all I have learned in his absence! I learned two new lines from a play too – would you like to hear them?" Before Christine had a chance to draw breath for a reply, ten-year-old Adrienne launched into a dramatic oration, lifting her clasped hands together and watching as she held them high above her head.
"'Yea, noise? Then I'll be brief. O happy dagger, this is thy sheath. There rust and let me die!'" She slammed her clasped hands down to her heart and gracefully collapsed on the floor in a flurry of cream muslin and red florets.
Christine gawked at the dramatic display.
Good heavens.
Adrienne cracked open an eye from her supine position. "Do you not like Shakespeare? You're supposed to applaud," she informed helpfully, then pushed herself up to sit. "As an author I find him quite tragic. I adore Romeo and Juliet though they were rather silly – don't you agree? All that balcony nonsense." She jumped to a stand. "I can sing too – would you like to hear me? I learned a lovely new aria." She opened her mouth to begin, when a look of regret clouded her dark eyes. "No, I just ate, that won't do. The Maestro wouldn't like it, and he's sure to know. He knows everything. Do you sing, Mademoiselle Daaé?"
Christine felt quite breathless from the whirlwind display, not sure how the girl wasn't gasping for air or how her thoughts didn't get all muddled and could find clear passage with her endless stream of words. Unprepared for the question that for over a decade brought only unwelcome attention and heartache, she managed a "Not really," before insisting that Adrienne take a seat at the table and calm herself before she fell over and truly dropped dead.
The nurse had at some time during the proceedings disappeared, and Christine set a piece of parchment and quill with an inkpot in front of her student.
"I have been witness to your dramatic talents," Christine said, "now let us see how you perform in other skills. Are you able to write your letters?"
Adrienne sniffed imperiously. "Of course."
"Good. Please commit to paper the lines of Shakespeare you just recited."
The girl's dark eyes sparkled. "May I write down all of Juliet's soliloquy from Act 5?"
Surprised but pleased with her pupil's eagerness to apply herself to penmanship, Christine smiled and gave her permission.
The following hours Christine spent ascertaining the level of Adrienne's knowledge in the rudimentary skills, so as to proceed with her education. Luncheon was spent in learning more about the precocious girl, a topic Adrienne embarked on with gusto, and Christine noticed how often allusions to the mysterious Maestro entered their conversation. The remainder of their time together Christine assessed her ability with more womanly pastimes involving the needle in three areas – basic sewing, needlepoint, and knitting – finding all areas to be sadly deficient. Even with a bevy of servants at the girl's behest to sew on a button or darn a pair of stockings, Madame Fairfax said that such skills were required for the child to learn. It wasn't Christine's place to question, only to follow orders given, and she could see her success to train in those domestic skills would be sorely challenged.
A quiet supper of beef and potato soup and bread with Madame Fairfax helped Christine relax, but when a maid entered the room and told her that the Maestro requested Mademoiselle Daaé's presence in the main parlor, mad butterflies cavorted within her stomach.
Madame Fairfax gave her a nod of encouragement and Christine left the room. Adrienne came flitting down the stairs like an excited little bird before Christine found her way to the main parlor.
"Mademoiselle Daaé – there you are! Has the Maestro sent for you too? Oh, how simply lovely. I hope he brought me a present – he often does when he's been gone so long, though he wasn't happy with me when he left. But he did promise to bring a doll when I asked for a flaxen-haired one. Yellow hair is so lovely. Do you believe he might still be angry and has forgotten?"
Christine smiled in reassurance, uncertain what answers to give since she did not yet know her employer. Adrienne reached for Christine's hand, and she realized with a little shock just how nervous the child was, which did little to help ease her own nerves.
They had almost reached the open doors of the main parlor, golden firelight pouring out onto the marble floor, when Adrienne tugged on Christine's arm for her to bend her ear closer.
"Whatever you do," she said quietly, almost a whisper, "do not speak of his mask."
Any modicum of warmth Christine felt from the inviting glow of the cozy parlor froze to icicles in her breast at the child's telltale words - and her first glimpse of the impressive figure of the tall gentleman wearing a black frock coat and dark trousers. He stood before the large open hearth with his back to them, his hands held behind him.
"Adrienne, come inside and do not dally," he said without turning. "You know I don't like to be kept waiting."
Christine had no need to see his face to understand the identity of the Maestro. That powerful deep voice that both commanded obeisance and coaxed free will was unmistakable…
And then he turned and spotted her.
Her breath caught in her throat as she met the green glint of his eyes completely surrounded by black leather – the fire in the grate behind surely adding to the illusion of golden sparks within his orbs, as if they, too, burned. She felt strangely trapped and unprepared, as if she'd again fallen in the middle of the road before him, helpless and at his mercy, with nowhere to run…
xXx
A/N: Oh, dear… (muahahaha) bit o' trivia- the Headless Horseman legend dates back to the middle ages in various forms. I decided to go ahead and include the nod to Sleepy Hollow, since it is the most widely known. W. Irving wrote the poem while abroad in England, and though it was published in 1820 America, the book of short stories could have found its way into the library of a French manor three decades later… ;-)