A/N: Thank you so much for the reviews! :)
V
Christine passed the days studiously learning the way of life at Thornfield. Those hours not spent in service to Adrienne, she slowly familiarized herself with her new home, in those rooms allowed for her to roam.
One such morning, two hours before she was to meet with Adrienne, she wandered along one of the corridors on the main floor. The distant chords of a piano led her to take the bend into another corridor, the music becoming louder and clearer, until she came upon a room whose door stood ajar.
She peered through the crack into a chamber lit with morning sunlight. Of marble flooring and gold-flecked wallpaper above ivory wainscoting, it appeared to be a music room that contained a piano and a harp, all she could see from this angle…
And in the center of her focus, seated stiffly erect on the piano bench, from the breadth of his wide shoulders and the long lines of his lean frame, sat the master.
It was the closest she'd been to him since their official introduction in the parlor, only having observed him at a distance since then, and Christine took a moment to stare. He wore a black frock coat of flawless fit, his hair as glossy as a raven's wing. His large hands and slender fingers spanned octaves.
"Again!" he barked, turning his head in profile. Christine noticed that once more he wore his black leather mask. Indeed, she had never seen him without it.
Adrienne, who stood at the piano's edge, appeared near tears. She began to sing like a little chirruping, hiccuping bird, making even Christine wince.
The Maestro slammed his fingers to the keys in a dissonant thunder.
"No- damn you – NO! You have not followed one instruction given. And tell me, my little glutton, that you did not indulge in a sweetmeat before practice. Do not lie to me…"
"Si - but I was hungry, and they looked so very delicious."
"Rules are made for a reason, Adrienne." His voice came stern but silent. "I have told you not to partake of food before a lesson. You must learn obedience and restraint if you wish for me to continue to teach you. Life is not some silly little play you can fashion as you wish it, and there are times even a dramatic work of fiction evades your every effort for ownership and certainly improvement." His last words came sardonic, beneath his breath, seeming self-directed and not about Adrienne at all.
"I'm sorry, Maestro."
Her voice came as soft as a mouse, and he sighed.
"Again…"
Christine backed away before she could be discovered, recalling orders given never to seek out the master and having no wish to be caught spying. She retreated the way she'd come, the strident notes from the piano fading until only the click of her soles on the tiles could be heard.
This would be a perfect opportunity to visit the library with its bountiful offering of books.
Once inside the massive chamber, Christine stared in awe, feeling adrift. Every wall was filled floor-to-ceiling with books, save for the one, which also contained a large hearth in which a low fire burned. Three tall narrow windows brought light into the room, when their dark damask curtains were drawn to allow it. Around the fire a gathering of hardwood chairs and a small sofa of similar dark material stood, and situated near that sat a large carved desk behind which stood an equally massive leather-and-brass-studded chair. A collection of ledgers and piles of paper sat on the glossy surface of the desk, and on the edge, as if ready to take flight, perched a golden statuette of what Christine recognized as a Firebird from drawings she'd seen in Greek literature.
It was a room built to intimidate, certainly, and she could envision the master holding meetings with his tenants here, as they stood before his desk with hats in hands while quaking in their boots.
There must be thousands of books within this chamber, more than any man could read in one lifetime! She had no idea where to begin to look for suitable material for a ten-year-old girl, and shook her head at a loss, beginning with the bookcase nearest her. Curious about the thick and thin leather volumes far above reach, and wondering how they were reached, she settled for scanning only those to which she had easy access.
The first bookcase contained works of a highly elaborate nature, having to do with the sciences and various eras of history. The second contained the same. The third held biographies. On the fourth she found something acceptable, Les Contemplations, a book with which she was familiar. For now it would suffice.
Christine had spent a great deal of time in her search and felt it wise to leave before the master should return and find her there.
With every intention to revisit and study the many shelves when she would have more time of assured solitude, she quit the library and hastened to the room upstairs that had been assigned for Adrienne's tutelage.
Christine prepared the lesson in short order and now wished she had retrieved a novel for her own enjoyment. She had seen none there, but surely a library so extensive must contain fiction as well as books of instruction and enlightenment. She thumbed through the volume of poetry, seeking those selections she deemed suitable for Adrienne's education as she waited for the precocious child to arrive.
Once Adrienne slipped through the door, she appeared quite glum. Recalling her glimpse into the girl's difficult lesson with the Maestro, Christine felt she understood and did what was feasible to lift her spirits.
"This is a collection of poems I think you will enjoy." She handed Adrienne the book, familiar with the writer, having taught his works before. "The manner in which they are composed is reminiscent of an autobiography. Do you know what an autobiography is?"
"No, mademoiselle," Adrienne sighed, showing scant interest in learning today.
"It is prose or verse that the author uses to tell his own story. In this case, the writer is Victor Hugo. He wrote the poems contained within this volume. It is said they depict the journey of his soul, from grief to acceptance, many of them written after his newly wed daughter, Léopoldine, drowned in the Seine due to a boating accident. Indeed, many of these poems were written with her in mind."
"Oh - but she drowned? How simply tragic!" Adrienne's eyes sparkled with fascination as she clasped her hands to her heart. "And her poor husband – did he also perish?"
"Yes, he did. Along with their unborn child. He drowned while trying to save her."
"Oh, but how terribly romantic – please, will you read these poems to me, mademoiselle?"
"I should like to hear the elocution of your voice and have you read instead."
As expected, Christine's introduction to the book captured the morbid drama the little girl so enjoyed in a tale.
Adrienne showed excitement with the poems thereon, and recited them well, though now and again Christine noticed her gaze travel to the sunny window and what could be seen of the grounds. Twice she had to remind Adrienne to keep her eyes on the text, and only once did she need to correct her pronunciation. Whoever had been governess to the child before Christine had done well in teaching Adrienne to read. Five poems later, the last one of incredible length that spanned pages, Christine deemed today's lesson complete.
"Very nicely done, Adrienne. Such diligence should be rewarded. If you should do well in all your studies for the remainder of this week, we will have a picnic outdoors on Saturday. Would you like that?"
The weather would soon be too cold for such outings, with the advancement of the chill autumn nearly upon them, and Christine also preferred the outdoors when they could be enjoyed.
The girl's eyes went wide. "Truly, mademoiselle?" She smiled. "And may the Maestro come with us?"
Christine hesitated, not having expected such a question. She was surprised to hear it, after what she'd seen of the trials the girl endured that morning, that the child would even want him there.
"The Maestro has much business to conduct now that he's returned to Thornfield. It wouldn't be wise to distract him."
Adrienne gave a long, dramatic sigh. "si, è così..."
Christine smiled tolerantly. "Adrienne, if you wish for me to understand you, you must speak in French. As I told you before, I have no knowledge of Italian, none whatsoever."
"Oh - but then I must teach you! I said – yes, it is so." She nodded emphatically. "Italian is my mother language, what my bambinaia Elita – my nurse – calls it, though I don't remember being in the country of my mother's birth. My mother went to be with the holy Virgin when I was only a babe." She gave another little dramatic sigh. "I was so very young when I arrived to France. My nurse teaches the language to me and says I must know it, so that one day I may go back to my family, if God wills it so."
"But..." Christine looked at her in confusion. "Is the Maestro not your family? I thought he was perhaps an uncle..."
"Oh no – I think of him as an uncle though I do not call him that. He wouldn't be pleased. Elita says I have three uncles, though I've never seen them." She picked up the new doll she had carried in with her and perched it on her knee. "The Maestro calls me his little nuisance. He says I mustn't be so greedy and pester him all the time, but he brings me lovely presents from his many trips, even if I am incorrigible as he says. Isn't she pretty? I wish I had flaxen hair or long curls, like yours. Why do you always pin them up and not let them hang down?"
Christine hardly thought the term of "nuisance" or "incorrigible" a flattery, though Adrienne beamed as though she'd been presented with a grand compliment.
"Your hair is lovely as it is," she said, ignoring the question. "But Adrienne, there are things of much more importance than the color or style of one's hair. One's heart. One's soul. One's mind. With the rest, you must learn to be content."
"I suppose. The Maestro says I favor my mother, though it does not please him to say it. I wish I had a portrait of her to know what she looked like."
There were many curiosities Christine harbored about the relationship between the master and his ward – especially how she'd come to be in his care when she had blood kin. Why did none of the three uncles take her into their homes? But she hardly thought it appropriate to question the girl. In all likelihood, Adrienne was never told the way of things if she'd been little more than a babe when she left her homeland.
Once the girl flitted off with her nursemaid for a special luncheon and trip into the local village, Christine decided to join Madame Fairfax to share the meal with her. The matronly housekeeper greeted her effusively and filled any possible corners of silence with her ceaseless chatter, bemoaning what mistakes the five maids under her charge had created that day, while praising the Maestro's laborious efforts to put estate matters to rights.
"I am curious about something," Christine said when she found a passable segue. "Adrienne's mother. I understand that she died?"
"What?" The woman seemed a mite distracted. "Oh- oh yes. Such a sad plight for the child. The mother died in the year after Adrienne was born. The Maestro took the girl into his care and brought her with him to France. From then on, he made his home here, if you could call it that, what with his many absences…"
"Then she was little more than a babe at the time?"
"Oui, that she was, and a sweeter child I never did see."
"And her uncles?" Christine pressed, her curiosity unsatisfied. "Were they not able to care for her? She mentioned that she's never met them."
"No, no they were not. But really, mademoiselle, you must speak to the Maestro about such things if you want to know more about Adrienne. I know very little about the child's situation and wouldn't wish to speak out of ignorance and lead you astray. Now, where are those scones?" She rose from the table and headed for the door. "Bessie? Bessie, where are you, you lazy girl…?"
Christine resigned herself that she would get no more out of Madame Fairfax, whose cagey manner led her to believe that she knew more than she was willing to say. Perhaps the woman felt it beneath her loyalty to divulge secrets wrapped within family history, if secrets are what they were.
With her meal finished, Christine resumed her solo discovery of her new lodgings.
Thornfield not only contained numerous windows, it had countless corridors, which held rows of doors and twisted this way and that. Within the corridors, doors flanked both sides, save for the west wing and its abundance of narrow panes along the outside wall that faced the vast grounds and forest beyond. Here no candles glowed from brass sconces, as they did in the inside corridors. Here, the sunlight flooded the chamber with brilliance.
Christine found herself beside a wall lined with portraits, family members she assumed. She glanced out one of the windows and noticed a distant tower that jutted at the far end of what she assumed was yet another corridor that led to another wing. The south tower, if her direction was to be trusted.
She looked at the paintings hung by the progression of years, as the manner of clothing and style of hair depicted. Powdered wigs suggested the 18th century, the faces in oil mostly dour. She could make no comparisons to the present master of Thornfield, whose mask shielded many of the characteristics she now studied within the carved and gilt frames. In a more current painting, the powdered wig absent, she found a tall, brooding man with eyes the color of green-gold. Perhaps the Maestro favored him in countenance, certainly in the eyes…
She went on to the next painting, a bright one with colorful flowers, the backdrop a shaded garden. Here a dark-haired man proudly sat on a bench beside a petite woman who stood behind him and to the side, nearly smiling – as much as these proper and pompous ancestral paintings would allow for a smile. Her hand rested gently on her husband's shoulder. A chubby boy of approximately three sat on his knee, and a slender girl with be-ribboned braids, approximately two years older, stood in front of the woman. On the opposite side of the man, a girl of perhaps fourteen stood in an elaborate flounced dress, her curls held back with a single ribbon. A shepherd dog reclined at his master's booted feet. What struck Christine was the prominent scar along the left side of the man's face, at his temple and over his eye.
Was this the reason for the mask? Did the Maestro inherit his ancestor's scars?
At the sound of footsteps, Christine turned her head to see that Madame Fairfax had come to join her.
"You didn't stay for a scone, dear."
"My appetite was satisfied." It would be more truthful to state that she was unaccustomed to eating meals of such great quantity, a lifetime of near-starvation and deprivation forming her meager eating habits.
"Tsk, tsk – if a good wind came up, it would blow you clean to the other side of the village." She turned to look at the painting that had caught Christine's attention. "Ah, Master Edward and his Lady Jane, such a lovely couple. I wasn't yet born when they ruled Thornfield, but my mother had many good things to say about them. He was forthright but kind to those who served his household, and she was a living saint. They lived in England before coming to France – this is actually the second Thornfield. The first, well, there was a bit of mystery involved with that. Indeed, a number of ghost stories arose, some too far-fetched to believe. Of course we have our own ghostly tales to contend with in these parts…"
She sighed and shook her head, though whether her melancholy was associated with the past or the present, it was difficult to tell.
"With so few happy memories to be had there, I suppose it prudent that they sought to build a life in another country. Her father – or perhaps it was her mother – was French, you see." The housekeeper huffed a disgusted breath. "I cannot quite recall; the mind does that with age. But anyhow, there was a fire, in England. Nearly gutted the first house. It's how poor Master Rochester was scarred – went blind when a burning beam struck as he made his escape. Years later he regained sight in one eye, and his story ended happily and not tragically as you might presume. He found the love of a good woman, and they lived many long years together. The tot on his lap is the Maestro's own father. Can't say the same for the kind of wife he found. She was no saint."
She sniffed in disgust as they walked to the next painting.
Rochester.
"That is the Maestro's surname – Rochester?"
Madame Fairfax regarded her with surprise. "Goodness me – did I never tell you?"
"When I first came to Thornfield, I thought Fairfax was the name of my employer, due to our written correspondence. And you only ever call him Maestro, as does Adrienne."
"Yes, well – it is all he wishes to be called by, but to answer your question, yes, the master is Erik Rochester. And these were his parents."
"Were?"
"Both dead. May the good Master Edwin rest in peace. As for her – well, I shouldn't speak ill of the deceased, but she was a horrible woman, that Madeleine. Incredibly beautiful but vain, with a heart cold as ice. Treated the staff with an iron fist. There was a bit of the gypsy about her, I'd swear it. Though I will say this in her favor – she did seem to love her husband above all else. Perhaps it was his untimely death that made her so cruel, and to their own child worst of all. I was a girl, not much older than you, when I served under them. The Maestro up and ran away one night, couldn't have been more than six at the time. Never did return 'til after his mother's death. Well, no, there was the once, when he was a young man. Didn't stay for more than a day though. She was evil toward him, as always. Little wonder he left as he did…"
As she spoke, Christine studied the painting. The setting appeared to be the main parlor, the man seated in the tall wingback chair lean and handsome with a kind look about his pale grey eyes, their color and his demeanor a mirror to his mother. The black-haired woman standing next to him, with her hand on his shoulder, wore an elaborate emerald dress and was of astonishing beauty, but with a hard indifference that glazed her sea-green eyes.
"That was painted in the months after they married. Shortly after its completion, she discovered she was with child. It was in fetching the doctor for her, not trusting anyone else with the task, that Master Edwin found an icy patch of road. His horse fell atop him – crushed his legs it did, poor soul. Though it was the bitter cold that likely took his life."
Christine pondered the horrifically tragic words.
"Madame Fairfax…" She hesitated, wondering if she should speak, then rushed forth in her desire to know. "Why does the Maestro wear a mask? Was he, too, injured?"
The housekeeper pressed her lips together a moment, and Christine thought she might not speak.
"He was born…afflicted. The day after his father met his maker. I saw the Maestro as a newborn babe, such a tragic sight, that face – and only the once did I see it. Not long after that, his mother covered it with a mask. He was never allowed to remove it, poor lad. Since he's become master of Thornfield, the masks now and then change in appearance, but he never goes without. That one time only have I seen his face in its true form." She turned grave eyes to Christine. "You would be wise never to mention it or the mask while in his presence."
Adrienne had said much the same thing, and Christine nodded in assent, feeling a twinge of empathetic pity for the tortured boy he'd been. Abused and abandoned, much as she suffered as a girl – first at the hand of her merciless aunt and her spawn, later at the prison-like institution of Lindenwood. Punished for her voice, a natural part of her being, just as he once suffered for his face, a natural part of his. Perhaps he still suffered, if he felt he must never be seen without a mask. Yet no matter how horrid his affliction, Christine did not believe it would change her perception of him. She had learned long ago that true beauty resided within, not without…
And on that mode of conduct by which to judge, she was as yet uncertain where her new master stood.
She looked at the spot to the right of the painting, bare as the rest of the wall that followed.
"If the Maestro ever should marry, their painting will hang there," Madame Fairfax said, as if discerning Christine's thoughts. "Though it is doubtful."
"Doubtful he will marry?" Christine looked at her curiously. "Why do you say that?"
"Oh, make no mistake – there's plenty a woman wouldn't mind taking their place upon this wall – the Maestro is a very wealthy man. There are those who would marry him for greed alone, to become the next mistress of Thornfield. But he's also a very bitter man, and to hear him talk, he doesn't think highly on the institution of marriage…"
Nor did Christine ever entertain plans to marry, content to live with what independence a young woman in service could obtain; nonetheless, she thought the revelation quite sad.
She was pleasantly surprised that Madame Fairfax had proven to be a trove of useful information. After her failure to learn more of the immediate family history at luncheon, Christine never suspected she would learn so much with these ancestral portraits.
"Well, I must be about my business. There's much work yet to be done," the housekeeper nodded to Christine in parting and hurried off the way she'd come.
x
Christine turned her interest in the opposite direction, deciding to extend her tour of the manor. After a short distance, the corridor came to a dead end, a door on either side. She opened the one to her right and found herself in a small anteroom with a staircase against the opposite wall going to the upper level of what must be the third floor.
Before she could step forward and simply peer up the stairs, a heavyset woman, more brawn than flesh, lumbered down them in servant's attire. She turned at the foot, surprised to see Christine standing on the threshold.
"See here – what are you about?" the stranger asked, her voice a coarse rasp, her hair stringy and graying beneath the frilled cap she wore. Her face was florid and in her hand she held a small silver flask. Her uniform had seen better days; indeed, one sleeve was torn and the white smock quite dirty.
"I'm Christine Daaé – the new governess."
The woman sniffed in clear disinterest. "No one is allowed up there, 'ceptin' myself. No one. Go on with you then! Scat!"
Like a chastised child, Christine backed away before the woman could forcefully eject her – she certainly had the build for such a feat – and stood watching as the door closed directly in her face.
Well. That was quite bizarre, not to mention unjustifiably rude. She had only wished to learn the layout of the place, not wander into rooms she understood were forbidden.
Shaking her head, Christine tried the door opposite. This one revealed another inner corridor that stretched into the distance. She took the dimly lit passage, following its twists and turns, at times taking a series of double steps upward or downward. With surprise she noticed a second corridor that branched off and recognized it as leading to her bedchamber. She continued along the unknown corridor, soon coming abreast of a room with an open door.
This chamber contained an ambience of dark luxury, the furniture nearly black, the wood was such a deep brown, the hangings of the massive four-poster bed a rich crimson edged in gold with matching draperies at the window. Threads of the same hues ran through the exotic rug near the fireplace. She wondered if every chamber within this massive edifice held its own hearth, and thought how grateful the children of Lindenwood would be to have just one.
Such flagrant wealth bedazzled her mind but more shocking than that was the realization of exactly whose bedchamber she had found her way into. Even if a maid wasn't now busy at work smoothing the bed sheet, her back to Christine, the black velvet robe that lay draped over an upholstered bench near the low-burning fire would have suggested the identity of the owner – but the diverse masks that stood on three stands atop a dresser entirely gave that truth away.
Nervously she retreated before she could be spotted like an intrusive interloper – the north wing forbidden – and hastened back to the corridor leading to her bedchamber. Once inside, she closed the door and pressed her back to the wood in relief that her unintentional misconduct had not been discovered.
Both areas forbidden to her she had stumbled across, and unfortunately, with both, her curiosity had been stirred and not sated. Would she ever revisit either chamber? Heavens no! It was her wretched curiosity paired with her impassioned nature that was her true crutch to being upright and good, and she would not again allow herself to be tempted.
x
A servant knocked on the door a short time before the evening meal.
"The Maestro says you're to meet with him in the main parlor after supper," the maid announced. "And you're to bring your book of sketches with you."
With a short bob of her head, the girl left, Christine too stunned to form a reply. In her short time at Thornfield, she learned that the maids were considered beneath the position of governess or housekeeper, not that she thought them inferior, but they treated her with a deferential distance. However the odd caste system of the servants was far from her mind at the moment.
Why would the Maestro wish to see her sketches – and how ever did he find out about them?
Adrienne. The child must have seen the sketch Christine left out last night, though that presented the next question - when had the girl again entered her room?
Curiosity, it seemed, was not a deplorable trait belonging only to Christine.
Somberly, she moved to the dresser and took the paper where it sat propped, staring at its dark lines and contours before slipping it into her flat satchel and binding the ribbons closed.
At Lindenwood, she'd had no privacy; none whatsoever. Why did she, naught but a poor sparrow, think she might be granted such a luxury while working under a different master?
She deliberated about rebuffing his order and leaving her sketches safe and unseen within her chamber, perhaps hiding them away, then wondered why she made such a fuss in her mind with the idea of presenting them.
And yet…
Her eyes turned up to the framed painting on the wall, so dark, so familiar, before she decisively left the room to descend the stairs, her satchel held beneath one arm.
xXx