Costumes and Filigree: A Novel of the Phantom of the Opera Page 10

  Chapitre Dix: Le Masque

  Christine enjoyed her night’s sleep on Erik’s bed down in his caverns. She felt the tiniest bit guilty about making him sleep on the lumpy sofa, but he had been anxious to please her, and she was a guest, after all. In the morning she awoke to the beautiful, heavenly sounds of an organ, though she couldn’t see one anywhere.

  The organ, somewhere beyond her limited line of sight, crescendoed in a rush of powerful chords, accented by long, sorrowful trills that dwindled away, reminiscent of the last few drops of rain against a windowpane, replaced by a series of solitary notes so long and so haunting that they seemed indelible in her ears. What mortal could play something so beautiful? Surely Erik was truly an angel.

  She sat up and crossed to the doorway linking the bedroom to the main cavern. For a moment she paused to appreciate the cavern’s beauty, with its majestically-high ceiling and how powerful the notes of the organ sounded as they echoed off its walls. With interest, she studied the bookcases piled high with sheet music, the plain, serviceable furniture, and instruments everywhere—flutes, oboes, violins, a cello, a piano, everything the Garnier’s orchestra had and more. The cavern was clean of mold and other gross things she would have expected to find in a cave, but there was an element of bachelor untidiness that surprised her.

  Bolted to the center of the far cavern wall stood the magnificent pipe organ. Ranks of bronze organ pipes stretched up to the ceiling and several even jutted out into the room, reminding Christine of a row of trumpets. Erik was seated at the massive instrument; a dark cloak spread out behind him and hid his feet as they flew across the pedals at the organ’s base. His hands were likewise busy, moving between the various keyboards to create a soaring, graceful melody.

  As if sensing her gaze, Erik turned around for a brief moment, then returned to his music.

  “Hello,” she ventured.

  Erik returned her greeting with a nod. “Christine.” His loose cotton shirt did not hide the well-toned muscles of his arms and chest, hardened—she guessed, noticing the sabers and rapier leaning against a far corner—from hours spent fencing.

  “Do you still wish to remain here?” he asked tentatively.

  “Of course.”

  “Do you wish to continue our lessons?”

  His voice was calm, but she thought she could sense hope and uncertainty in his demeanor. It gave him a hint of vulnerability that came in sharp contrast with the boldness and poise his body radiated, and it pleased her to think that she could have such power over anyone. It was apparent that he thought his deception had destroyed all chances of continuation as her instructor. In fact, he seemed utterly nonplussed that she was speaking to him at all.

  Hearing him play had confirmed her belief that he still was the Angel—who else could he be, with such sublime talent! Still, she had been hoping to avoid work of any kind during the execution of this plan, but his demeanor made her change her mind. “Yes, of course,” she said, with a beaming smile.

  During the following two days Christine felt as if she were in Asgard itself, the fabulous home of the gods. Erik was so good to her, constantly at her side, teaching her more in that brief time than she’d learned in her entire life. He was a marvelous cook, too. It was enthralling to see the wonders he could work with the wood stove, few utensils, and pans. The place was fairly comfortable, too, for a subterranean cavern. Erik kept the place astonishingly well-lit (because of her presence, he said), and, with the comfort, the excellent service, and the spectacular food, it was rather like staying at a fine hotel.

  She tried to find out as much as she possibly could about angels, and about him personally, but always ended up with more questions than answers. He seemed quite unhappy when she interrogated him and evaded most of her questions, still asserting that he wasn’t the Angel, but generally he avoided the subject entirely. His reticence irritated her, but she supposed she could live with her limited knowledge of angelic beings—perhaps he wasn’t allowed to tell her of the divine (that is, if he really was an angel). And besides, the most important thing was that he was here and leading her along the path to fame and fortune.

  But something was gnawing at the back of her mind—what was under his mask?

  He was so good-looking…at least, the half of his face that she could see. His discerning emerald eyes and perfectly chiseled features, though not as handsome as Raoul’s, were quite attractive. What could he possibly have to hide? Several times she had to stop her hand from reaching up and ripping off the mask. But what could it possibly disguise? If one side of his face was handsome, then how could the other side not be?

  It struck her at one point that perhaps it concealed his true face—the face of an angel—too radiant for any mortal eye to behold. Yes, that made perfect sense. Or, at least, it did for a few hours. Then it hit her that it was terribly impractical to change one’s entire self to look human except for half of one’s face. But what did she know of the divine? Perhaps it was a rule that, when an angel was clothed in mortal flesh, he could not cover himself entirely. But then, why not choose one’s hand, or foot? Feet were always covered, and Erik wore gloves. She could not make sense of it at all, and, after a day of mulling it over, she gave up. There was only one way to find out, and she was too scared to do it.

  “Why do I have to read sheet music?” she whined that afternoon, finishing off a strawberry.

  “Put those down, Christine—you can’t sing with your mouth full of fruit.”

  Christine defiantly picked up another berry. “I don’t want to sing. I hate sheet music. It’s complicated and stupid and I can’t read it.”

  “That’s not a good attitude,” Erik chided gently, taking the bowl from her. “You’ll never become a diva if you can’t learn the music.”

  “I’ll just get you to play the notes for me, and I’ll learn it that way.”

  He sighed. “What if the managers hand you a sheet and ask you to sing the notes?”

  “I’ll pretend to faint.”

  “That will only work once.”

  She snatched at the bowl of fruit, which he held easily out of her reach. “Then you can drop a set or something to distract them.”

  Erik’s hand flew to his face in an attempt to conceal a laugh. The sound that emerged from his mouth, so rich and uncharacteristically carefree, surprised Christine. The idea of Erik laughing was a strange one; he loved her intensely, yes—she could feel it in his every word, every movement—but his passion did nothing to lift the somber iron cloud that never left his countenance; at least, that was what she had thought. But he was definitely laughing.

  When he had regained his customary solemn expression, he had to fight to make his voice sound serious as he said, “Will you at least try, Christine? Please?”

  She started to say something rude, but realized it at the last second and checked herself. “Oh, fine.” It wasn’t as if she didn’t enjoy her lessons; Erik had the most marvelous voice she had ever heard. She had worked at the Garnier for several years, but despite all the lauded singers she had listened to in that time, she had never heard a voice like his—even listening to it during her lessons, when he wasn’t singing full-length polished arias, she was always moved to tears by its unbelievable beauty. No being in all the Nine Worlds—not the elves, the norns, or any god—could possibly possess a voice as perfect and sensuous as his. When he sang happy arias, her heart was filled with bubbling joy, and she felt as if she were going to float off the floor in ecstasy; when he sang sorrowfully, it affected her so deeply that she couldn’t stop crying for hours afterward. How could he be anything but an angel with such a voice? Curiously, he seemed quite surprised at the power his voice had on her, and after reducing her to tears more than once, was very careful not to sing anything hinting at all of unhappiness.

  He handed her a page of music, bringing her back to the matter at hand, and pointed to a strange symbol that looked something like an uppercase C right after the treble-clef sign. “This denotes f
our-four time.”

  “That’s stupid,” she declared. “If it’s four-four it should just say four-four.”

  “Yes, it should,” he agreed placatingly. “But since it doesn’t, you should know what it means.” Before she could disagree, he pointed to another symbol. “What does this signify?”

  “It’s an X.”

  “But what does it mean?”

  “I have no idea. Give me my strawberries.”

  “Christine, you need to pay attention.”

  “I’ll pay attention if you give me a strawberry.”

  He reluctantly obliged. “I spent a half-hour explaining double-sharps yesterday, if you will kindly recollect.”

  “Oh yes, a double-sharp. Now I remember.” She really didn’t; she had been thinking about Raoul at the time instead of listening. She wondered what Raoul was doing right now. How would he know that she was still in the opera house? Not that she wanted to be rescued right away, but she wanted to know just how many legions of searchers Raoul had recruited in his desperate search for his abducted bride.

  The moment he saw her, he would probably kneel and propose before she had a chance to say a word! Yes, and Raoul would order the wedding immediately and race her to Italy for their honeymoon before the demonic Phantom could ensnare her in his clutches again.

  This line of thought prompted her to study Erik’s white, glossy mask. What would Raoul think if he knew that the fiendish ghoul that everyone dreaded was, in fact, an angel?

  “So if the note is an E, then what is it double-sharped?”

  His words didn’t reach Christine, who was busy staring at that mask. It was infuriating that he wouldn’t show her his angelic face. It was downright insulting! Didn’t he think she was worthy to look upon the beauty and glory of his true face?

  “Christine!”

  “Sorry! What was the question again?”

  “What is E double-sharped?”

  “Uh…a G sharp?” she guessed, not really trying. Perhaps if she could somehow spill ink on his mask, he would have to take it off to clean it. Or she could just wait until he fell asleep….

  “No, no,” he said, as patiently as possible. He sat down at his piano and pressed a key. “This is the E. So if you go up two steps”—he hit the note above the E, and then the next note—“you have…?”

  “An F sharp,” she said immediately, recognizing the pitch of the note thanks to her father’s teaching.

  “But you know that by its pitch,” he accused lightly. “You need to think in terms of the staff.”

  “I don’t care about the staff,” she snapped, unable to tear her eyes from his mask. Perhaps the light of his heavenly face was so bright that it would blind a mere mortal such as herself. But if that were the case, he could just explain it to her and quell her curiosity—in part, at least. “Isn’t it enough that I can recognize a note by hearing it?”

  “The managers won’t think so.”

  “Then you can just send them a scary note threatening to haunt them if they don’t like it.”

  If Christine had been paying more attention to him than to his mask, she would have noticed the amusement, accompanied by a slight glint of exasperation, in his eyes. As it was, however, she selected another strawberry and asked petulantly, “Can we be done yet?”

  Erik sighed. “Yes, Christine, we can be done.”

  Her lessons, wonderful as they were, became slowly unbearable as the mystery ate away at the back of her mind. Even his presence, so gentle and loving, became torturous. It made her undeservingly short with him, and his submissive acceptance of her abuse made her feel absolutely horrible. One particularly dreadful episode occurred on the third day of her stay with him, when he had been teaching her a new set of scales. It was higher than she could easily manage, and she was embarrassed at how awful it made her voice sound. When she told him this, he replied,

  “Christine, the purpose of these scales is to increase your vocal range. It doesn’t matter if you don’t sound perfect now, as long as, when the time comes, you can sing the especially high notes that Mozart loved to include in his works.”

  “But I sound horrible!” she snapped, stamping her foot childishly and striding away from him, arms folded. “I sound horrible and this is boring and I hate it!”

  He was silent for a moment; then he sighed. “I am sorry. If you like, we won’t practice for the rest of your stay.”

  Feeling a sudden surge of guilt, she whirled to face him. “No, no, I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to be so unpleasant.”

  “It’s all right, Christine.”

  She sat back down, but it was such a difficult thing to keep her hands locked behind her back….

  Raoul was going mad with anxiety. He paced about his study with unmatched fury, wracking his brain for an answer. Where was Christine? What on earth could have happened to her? It was obvious that someone—the man in her room that night—was taking advantage of her innocence. And it worried him greatly that this man was perhaps responsible for Christine’s disappearance. What if she’d been kidnapped, or worse—what if she’d gone willingly?

  On the first day of her disappearance, he had assumed she was still suffering from her fall (he had offered to take her to a doctor after he had found her lying on the floor of her dressing room, but she had refused). But perhaps she had simply been too afraid that he, a vicomte, couldn’t possibly enjoy her company, since she had so recently been a lowly chorus girl. But that was fine; in fact, it was endearing that the lovely girl realized how wonderful it was of him to honor their childhood friendship, even though she was so far beneath his social standing. Even as a child, though she hadn’t fully understood just how different their social stations were, she had always talked and talked about how wonderful it would be to be wealthy. Well, when he found her and personally carried her back to his mansion, she would have all the wealth and splendor she could ever ask for. He just hoped she would appreciate the fact that he was spending his time wooing her and not someone of greater social standing. (Of course, when everyone saw just what a prize she was, he would be the most envied man in Paris, despite her plebeian status.)

  She had evidently been at the Garnier for the next day or two, though she missed some of the rehearsals due to a claimed “concussionary relapse,” and then disappeared altogether.

  He had gone to Christine’s flat to investigate, but Christine wasn’t there—just her guardian, Madame Valerius. If he had known just how impossible the woman was to deal with, he wouldn’t have bothered. When he asked her where Christine was, she would merely say, “She is vith ze Angel of Music, of course!” What a ridiculous answer. Her superstition was almost as intolerable as the wretched squalor in which she allowed Christine to live. Imagine being forced to reside in an apartment—not even an apartment, but a tenement—with only three rooms!

  But he’d played along with her absurd notions about the “Angel,” asking most politely, “And where does this Angel live, madame?”

  “In ‘eaven, monsieur! Surely you knew zat!”

  He might as well have not asked at all, for all the good it did him. He was relieved to bid the woman goodbye and leave the horrid flat. He hadn’t been able to bring himself to sit down on one of those scratched, stained chairs and had been forced to stand the entire time, an unheard-of slight for someone of his rank. Their chimney was tiny—almost nonexistent—and the room had smelled very strongly of smoke. The walls themselves were so grimy with soot that the cheap whitewash had been reduced to a mottled grey. Imagine what the smoke and soot had done to his garments! He’d never be able to wear them again.

  When he found Christine—wherever she was—she would be so pleased to become his mistress and get out of this unbearable poverty! Of course, she would have done so even if she were not quite so poor. How could she possibly resist the charm of a Chagny? Actually, it was rather disappointing that he would not have any real competition with which to show how skilled at courting he really was; who else would lower t
hemselves by associating with a chorus girl? That man in her dressing room was so pathetic that he didn’t even count. If anyone else tried for her affections, it would probably just be some worthless stage hand. Absolutely pathetic.

  But he had to find Christine before he could commence planning how best to woo her. And all that rubbish about an Angel was nothing to go off of. Those ridiculous stories Christine’s father insisted on filling her head with weren’t just irritating, they were downright damaging! Christine had always refused to believe anything he told her if it contradicted one of her father’s tales. He remembered one particularly aggravating instance when he had tried to explain to her that rain was simply the condensation of water particles in the clouds. She insisted that they were the tears of all the people that had ever died. She’d refused to speak to him for two days because of it. It was appalling. He couldn’t believe that she actually still entertained the idea of that ridiculous Angel of Music. Well, when he got her back, he’d make sure that all those absurd beliefs were done away with. Not too much education, of course—that might damage her poor head—but just enough so that she wouldn’t refute what he had to say.

  Raoul had gone to the managers, but they knew nothing of Christine’s whereabouts. They were so busy panicking that they were of absolutely no use whatsoever. His next step had been to alert the police, though he held little faith in their abilities. He had always been taught that, as a Chagny, the only way to get something done right was to oversee it personally. And the police never took kindly to such an imposition on their rigid hierarchy. He’d heard many good things about their current Prevote, Leonhard Blaise, but still, the efforts of the police amounted to nothing. In fact, Blaise seemed irritatingly calm about the whole thing.

  “I’m sure she’ll turn up in a day or so,” he’d told Raoul, turning back to the paperwork on his desk. “Chorus girls disappear more often than you’d think, just to reappear within a few days. Usually the result of a fling with some upper-class member of society.”