Costumes and Filigree: A Novel of the Phantom of the Opera Read online

  Raoul de Chagny prided himself on his impeccable demeanor and breeding. His family was of the uppermost echelon of Parisian society, and everyone who knew them considered them gentlemen of the highest degree. Nothing made him prouder than being heir to the pure bloodlines, superior intellect, and etiquette of the Chagny family. The lessons that had been drilled into him since childhood were chiseled in his memory: “The cultured man is never angry, never impatient, never demonstrative. His actions and speech are tempered with a dispassionate calmness and tranquility. He does not know what it is to become irritable, to lose control of his temper, to speak discourteously. He is kindly, courageous, and civil.”

  Under normal circumstances, Raoul was only too proud to follow this code of gentlemanly etiquette. However, as if the stress and anxiety of Christine’s disappearance was not enough, Philippe had forced him to attend a private luncheon with Comtess Veronique de la Musardiere that he would have most happily forgone. “You can’t back out of a luncheon with your fiancée that’s been planned for two weeks,” his older brother had reprimanded him firmly. “I don’t approve of your sudden fixation with this Mademoiselle Daaé, but surely it can wait a few hours?” So, instead of directing the search teams out scouring the city for his beloved Christine, he was sitting on a balcony overlooking the Seine eating crumpets and trying to appear interested in what Veronique was saying.

  “…Rather vatical that the wedding is at the very start of January, don’t you agree?” the blonde woman asked him, stirring more sugar into her tea. Raoul didn’t have the slightest clue what vatical meant, and she knew it. “Symbolic of a new, fruitful beginning, you understand.” She was enchantingly beautiful, with piercing, dark blue eyes framed with arching eyebrows that often rose in mocking amusement. “Of course, a spring wedding would be more traditional and filled with promise, like the blossoming of a new, beautiful existence.

  “‘Awake, thou wintry earth, Fling off thy sadness!”” she quoted musingly, as if sampling a good wine. “‘Fair vernal flowers, laugh forth Your ancient gladness….’ That’s Thomas Blackburn.”

  It always annoyed Raoul that any woman, let alone the one he was going to have to marry, was so educated. What good would it do her? She should be spending her time admiring dresses in store windows and flirting with gentlemen like himself, not reading Thomas Moore and Aristotle. What was especially irritating was that he could never prove to her that he was just as well-educated as she was, because he had ignored books for more manly interests, like fencing, courting, and polo. “How nice,” he told her, fingering his spoon and wondering how the search for Christine was going. Those bumbling idiots would never find her without him to command them.

  Oh, God, if the kidnapper defiled her—! He battled a choking knot in his throat as he contemplated the very real possibility, realizing that he would have to discard Christine entirely if he rescued her too late. But no—it was too horrible to think about. He had to concentrate on getting her back.

  But after three days of searching, he had run out of Garnier and surrounding city to scour, and the managers and other denizens of the establishment were growing quite irate with him. He spent every waking moment sweating and cursing and wracking his brain for new places to search. He’d had to cancel a lunch date and two candle-light dinners with the most beautiful women in Paris, making him especially irritable and aggravated that the one engagement he had to keep was an utterly unenjoyable one.

  “Perhaps ‘fatidic’ would be a more befitting term than ‘vatical,’” mused Veronique, still stirring her tea. “Of course, ‘Delphian’ has a more exotic flavor; it’s also less flauntingly pedantic.”

  “Whatever pleases you,” said Raoul, tapping his fingers on the table and wondering how much longer he would be expected to sit there wasting his time. It was obvious she was taking her time finishing her crumpet just to drag out his torment.

  “Do you wish to hear another poem?” inquired Veronique, knowing full well that quoting irritated him. She was not pleased to be marrying him—a fact that Raoul simply couldn’t understand—and didn’t try in the least to cater to his feelings.

  “I would rather spend my time in silence,” he said, making a small attempt to keep the enmity out of his voice. If she hated him so much, why didn’t she just end the engagement? The breach of such a prestigious, long-term contract would cause quite a bit of damaging gossip and a loss of honor, the most critical possession one could own—the reason Raoul didn’t end it himself—but Veronique didn’t care about important things like public opinion. He supposed she just wanted to make him suffer as long as possible. He only hoped the loathing she held for him would prompt her to end the engagement before the wedding—January fifth. But she might hate him just enough to marry him out of spite. He couldn’t take that chance. He had to find Christine quickly!

  “As you wish,” Veronique replied, smiling, and turned her attention to the landscape beyond the balcony, no doubt planning a bombardment of poetry concerning wind and autumn leaves. Insufferable.

  He thought for several minutes about Christine, savoring the deep luster of her hair, the slenderness of her perfect waist, the beauty of her eyes when they adopted that vulnerable, confused look they so often wore…. Sitting there in the Musardiere mansion, trying and failing to ignore the pedantic horror seated across the table, his misery at not having succeeded in the seduction of his luscious little ingénue was even more piercing that usual. As Veronique opened her mouth to speak yet again, Raoul decided that Christine, so innocent, so radiant, so malleable, the absolute opposite of his future wife, was the perfect climax to his long and triumphant career as a bachelor. It was just fine that Christine was so shy concerning his advances—she would be his final victory. That is, if he ever found her.

  “It reminds me of a stanza,” began Veronique, retrieving another slice of bread from the basket on the table, “by a little-known poet from a hamlet in Germany—”

  “Please,” Raoul interrupted, striving to be polite. “You’ve been talking all afternoon—allow me to contribute something to the conversation.”

  Her smile was something like that of a cat tormenting her prey before killing it. “By all means.”

  “I don’t recall much poetry, but I would like to compose an ode to your sublime eyes, your perfect lips, your hair, the same blonde as Helen of Troy—”

  “Greek genetics favor dark hair,” she informed him patronizingly. “Or is it your supposition that Helen is of Scandinavian origin?” Her tone was insufferably mocking.

  Raoul was silent for a long, simmering moment before trying again to divert the subject from poetry. “Fine, Venus then. Surely Venus was blonde. You are fairer than Venus, more beautiful than any woman on earth—”

  “‘Remember,’” she interrupted again, and he realized disgustedly from the pitch of her voice that she was quoting someone, “‘that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless: peacocks and lilies, for instance.’”

  “Who said that?” he said acidly. “Someone ugly, obviously.”

  “John Ruskin, and quite the contrary, if the paintings of him are even reasonably accurate, he was quite an attractive man.”

  Raoul shook his head. Your recommendation doesn’t mean much, he thought sourly. Your idea of attractive is probably a doctorate and a private library.

  They fell into unpleasant silence for a time, in which Raoul contemplated a few possible ways that he could extricate himself from this horrific marriage. His parents had introduced him to Veronique when he was eight years old, explaining to him that it was not just wealth that made them nobility—it was their bloodlines, completely untainted down through the ages since the time of Charlemagne. He could be proud, his father had told him, that every drop of his blood was that of a Frenchman, and that the blood of the nobility and even royalty flowed in his veins. So it had been agreed that he would marry Veronique, who belonged to one of the few families with as vaunted an ancestry as his own. It would be unt
hinkable to sully his progeny’s veins with something less than the purest of French blood. Besides, Veronique was beautiful and just as wealthy as himself; he had been perfectly content with an arranged marriage.

  He hadn’t expected that his fiancée would be the one woman he had ever come across that didn’t swoon at the sight of him. No, not even when he’d applied his Chagny charm, his astounding wit, and his genteel manner, had she so much as given him a smile—except for that infuriating, amused one he loathed so much. Veronique wasn’t swayed in the least by his handsomeness and noble air; she was interested in things completely unattainable to her female grasp, mainly philosophic and economic discussions. What was worse, she seemed to delight in making him feel like an imbecile.

  He’d tried talking to Philippe about it, but without any results. Philippe actually seemed to enjoy hearing about Veronique’s infuriating behavior, laughing at her witticisms and applauding her extensive knowledge. It was appalling. “What on earth would you want a smart woman for?” Raoul had demanded of him. “She’s supposed to receive guests, look pretty and bow to your wishes—not debate about the disadvantages of capitalism or the legacy of the Napoleonic Code!” Philippe had just given him a despairing look and tried to explain something about the advantages of an intelligent woman running the manor’s domestic affairs, and that such vast knowledge was to be admired, no matter in which gender it was manifested.

  “Then why don’t you marry her?” Raoul had snapped. But he knew perfectly well why—Philippe was absurdly uncomfortable around women. He didn’t have the slightest clue how to handle them. However, it seemed to Raoul that it would be better for everyone all around if it had been Philippe the Musardieres had wanted to marry their daughter. But it was too late now—the word of a Chagny was the core of his entire existence. To jilt a Musardiere (especially one so closely related to the Bourbons, a former ruling family of France) was social suicide.

  Veronique interrupted his thoughts as she plucked a rose from the trellis on the balcony and said, “‘And Spring arose on the garden fair, like the Spirit of Love felt everywhere; and each flower and herb on Earth's dark breast, rose from the dreams of its wintry rest.’” She closed her eyes for a moment—Raoul wasn’t certain whether she was savoring the flavor of the tea or the poetry—then added, “Shelley was certainly a exceptional man.”

  Having calmed down a little, and seeing a chance to show that he was more educated than she, he said, “Ah, yes, the man who wrote that horrid novel about that undead, vicious monstrosity.”

  Veronique’s full, Thulian-pink lips curved in a cold, derisive smile. He had adored those lips once, back when he thought that he would be kissing them, not having to endure lectures and disdain from them. It was unfathomable. What a ridiculous waste, for a woman of such wealth and beauty to squander her time trying to be intelligent.

  “You are thinking of Shelley’s wife, vicomte,” she said with a sardonic air of amusement. “Percy Shelley was a poet. And evidently you missed the point of the book completely if you think that Doctor Frankenstein’s creation was a vicious monstrosity.”

  Raoul threw down his fork in disgust. “He was a criminal’s corpse shot full of electricity that hunted down Frankenstein to his death. You don’t call that a monster?”

  “I could reference a hundred places that prove that Frankenstein’s creation had emotions and kindness far beyond those of his creator—”

  “Please refrain from doing so,” said Raoul, with a forced smile that he hoped concealed his loathing. It only made her happier to see his frustration. “I have an appointment within the hour.”

  “Very well. I shall state just one: the heart-rending scene in chapter five, where that ‘monstrosity,’ as you so charmingly put it, just barely gifted with life a few minutes prior, discovers Doctor Frankenstein cowering in his bedroom—and I quote, ‘he muttered some inarticulate sounds, while a grin wrinkled his cheeks’.”

  Raoul, who had been hoping futilely that she would drop the subject, had to refrain from rolling his eyes in disgust. What kind of a woman—or any person, for that matter—spent their time memorizing any book, let alone Frankenstein?

  “The innocent heart of a child was revealed in that smile, my ignorant fiancé,” she said, her tone more than a little patronizing. “‘He might have spoken,’” she continued to quote, “‘but I did not hear; one hand was stretched out’—in greeting, vicomte, and in need—and Dr. Frankenstein ran from the house. He deserted the poor, ignorant child he had created, leaving him to fend for himself in a world that could never even begin to accept him. This ‘thing’ did not originate as a monster, he was made so!”

  Completely fed-up with being repeatedly corrected—he, a vicomte!—Raoul abruptly stood. “Thank you for such a fine meal,” he forced himself to say, his voice sounding mechanical as the gentleman in him attempted to mask his fury. If he had been desperate to find Christine before, he was doubly so now. Christine would listen to what he had to say, blush at his compliments, bow to his superior intelligence, and never contradict him! Who gave a damn if Frankenstein’s monster raised a hand in greeting? A monster was a monster!

  Furiously he strode inside and down the long marble staircase. Damn all etiquette—he would rescue Christine from her dastardly kidnapper, no matter what the costs!

  Chapitre Treize: Le Retour á la Surface

  In the two days since Christine had come face to face with the horror of a lifetime, every waking moment had dragged on and on to such lengths that by Saturday night she was in tears—clandestine, fearful tears—waiting for Sunday to arrive. She kept mostly to the small bedroom, and saw Erik rarely during that time, but she spent the hours biting her nails, watching the curtain for any sign of his approach, squeezing her eyes shut in an attempt to block out his face—still burned in her vision—and cursing herself for setting the date of her release so far away.

  When Saturday evening arrived (Erik had to inform her of the fact; night and day were the same in that dark prison) she was forced to use all the self-control she possessed to keep herself from racing up the steps and towards the safety of the light. She needed time to recover and to think—think about his deception and the nonexistence of the Angel. It was so unbearable to look at that innocent, white mask, knowing of the horrors that were concealed beneath it, and wonder, How could I have thought this was an angel?

  When she finally reached the mirror—Erik, unfortunately, had accompanied her up through the winding passageways to ensure that she did not lose her way—she felt so horribly sick over all the disappointment, the horror, the anger, and uncertainty stewing in her chest that she feared she might faint.

  “I will be here,” said Erik, “if you have need of me.” As he turned, searching for the concealed mechanism that controlled the false mirror, she caught a glimpse of the look in his eyes; an inconsolable hunger, a desperate longing, glimmering there amidst kindness and quiet subservience.

  After successfully locating the switch, he continued, “I shall be waiting, should you wish to practice your part for the next opera—Idomeneo, I believe, if the new managers have not changed it again.”

  “Do you think the managers will let me be a diva, after I ran out on Faust?”

  “I’m certain they will, Christine.”

  His smile was gentle, but all she could think of was how gruesomely it must have twisted his face. After two days of pretending, and with freedom so close, she couldn’t bear to look at him anymore. He caught her expression before she could alter it, and she hurriedly asked, hoping to divert him, “What’s the opera about?”

  “Well…to put it succinctly, Idomeneo is king of Crete—”

  “Crete? What’s that?”

  “It’s an island near Greece. Idomeneo’s son Idamante is in love with Princess Ilia—”

  She gripped the mirror frame to withhold a shudder, feeling the bile rise in her throat the longer she was forced to remain in his presence. “Ilia…is…is that me?” she managed, not
really listening.

  “Yes. She is the princess of Troy, which the Cretans have just defeated. Idamante frees the Trojan prisoners—”

  “It—it sounds great,” she said suddenly, unable to take any more of that gruesome face, even if it was hidden. “I’ll hear about it later.”

  “As you wish.” He gestured towards the empty mirror frame. “Until tomorrow?”

  “Yes. Tomorrow.” Christine wanted to jerk away and run, but she forced herself to pretend that nothing was wrong. Slowly she turned away and stepped out into the dressing room.

  She heard the mirror slide back into place, and she listened for Erik’s footsteps back down the stairs to the cellars. She heard nothing, but couldn’t wait a moment longer. She considered blockading the mirror, or at least throwing a sheet over it, but the image of the furious, unmasked Erik of a few days before flashed violently before her eyes, and she thought better of it.

  Erik waited a few moments after closing the mirror, gazing out at Christine in wonder. She was so beautiful, so pure, so kind—she had accepted his deformity, his inhumanity, as no other woman in the world could possibly do. Of course, he could tell that she wasn’t comfortable with his hideousness, but the fact that she had agreed to stay with him meant more to him than anything else in the world. All the guilt that had weighed on him—the guilt of his deception, his kidnapping—had been lifted from his shoulders by her angelic forgiveness. The poor girl had been so frightened by his face, and then his anger….

  It had been so unfortunate that she had let her curiosity take control of her, but miraculously, unexplainably, it had turned out for the better. If she hadn’t, he might not have ever had the courage to show her his whole face. How could she have accepted something so disgusting, so vile?

  You, Christine, he thought, you are the angel.

  At first he had wondered if she was putting on an act, but what reason could she possibly have? All she needed to have said was, “I’m leaving,” and he would have taken her back up to her dressing room. She hadn’t needed to stay with him for two more days.