Costumes and Filigree: A Novel of the Phantom of the Opera Page 7

  She dismissed the doctor and Madame Giry with assurances that she would be fine with a little rest. Before the doctor left, Christine begged him to inform the managers that she was not—under any circumstances—to be disturbed. She had kept the Angel waiting long enough already.

  And, painfully hobbling over to her worn vanity stool—cursing Loki, the trickster god, and Carlotta for giving her such a horrifically twisted ankle, which had redoubled its burning pangs in the aftermath of her collapse—she seated herself, closed her eyes, and waited for him to arrive.

  Raoul was very surprised, upon exiting Christine’s dressing room, to find that the hall was quickly filling up with people. Richard and Moncharmin, who were standing next to the door, spoke urgently to the physician, and were apparently relieved to find that their diva was recovering. The throng was now blocking the hallway, but Raoul had no intention of leaving; it was obvious that Christine had forced them all out so that she could talk to him alone. The way she had gone about it was roundabout and quite insulting, but fortunately he had seen through her feigned coldness.

  “What are all these people doing back here?” he demanded of the incompetent managers.

  “They all wish to congratulate Mademoiselle Daaé,” said Moncharmin, pulling at his moustache with a mix of anxiety and excitement.

  “Where is the comte, by the way?” Richard asked, scanning the crowded hallway. “He should be sharing in our success!”

  “Waiting in a secluded corner, no doubt, for all these people to disperse.”

  Richard looked puzzled for a moment, then dismissed it in favor of their great success. “We’ll be rich, Moncharmin!” he declared. “We have discovered the greatest voice in all of Europe!”

  “Yes, yes,” Raoul scowled, not really listening. The chattering and clamor of the crowd was beginning to get on his nerves, and it was keeping him from his rendezvous with Christine. “Get all these people out of here!”

  “We—we can’t very well do that, monsieur!” exclaimed Moncharmin.

  “Fine, then I’ll do it!” snapped the vicomte. Turning to face the mob—a difficult task, as he was almost completely surrounded by it—he declared in an overly-loud voice, “MADEMOISELLE DAAÉ IS RECOVERING, MESDAMES AND MESSIEURS, AND WILL NOT BE ABLE TO SEE ANY OF YOU TONIGHT!”

  Protests rippled through the crowd, but Raoul cut them off: “YOU MAY ALL SAVE YOUR CONGRATULATIONS UNTIL SHE HAS RECOVERED! GOOD NIGHT!”

  A few of the more determined opera-goers gave the vicomte some trouble, but after a brief battle he was able to convince everyone, including the managers, to retreat. He then positioned himself just outside the door to Christine’s dressing room, waiting for her to open it so that they could be reunited.

  Oh, Christine! Such a darling little seraph she had been as a child, and such a voice…. But it was nothing—nothing—compared to her divine radiance now. He had enjoyed many fair beauties, but Christine would undoubtedly be the most beautiful, the most radiant mistress he would ever possess. Even her low-born status would be irrelevant, so beautiful was she that—

  “Christine, you were absolutely beautiful tonight.”

  Raoul froze.

  Whose voice was that? How had this man even managed to sneak into Christine’s room? There was no means of ingress besides the door he was standing in front of, and there was absolutely no way anyone could have possibly slipped by him. It was impossible!

  But that wasn’t the most pressing issue—the fact was that the man was in Christine’s dressing room. It was obvious that the scoundrel had the same idea as himself. Yes, that must be it—the man’s voice had been soft and loving, confirming Raoul’s fears. He couldn’t detect anything insincere about it, but that just meant the man was good at the art of seduction. This was terrible! But he wouldn’t succeed if Raoul had anything to say about it—the only man who had the right to deflower this perfect rose was the Vicomte de Chagny!

  Then he heard Christine’s voice, tired and upset: “No, no, I was terrible! I ruined every single aria! I was horrific! Pathetic! Amateur! And then fainting, on top of it all!”

  “Are you quite all right?” he asked softly.

  “Yes, yes, I’m fine—though I did bruise my hip a little when I fell—but I’m so terribly embarrassed!”

  “You were wonderful, Christine, and a few mistakes do not change the beauty of your voice or the fabulous talent you possess.”

  “You really think so?”

  “I do.”

  “Well, thank you, but that’s just your opinion, and you’re supposed to be wonderful to me—what about the audience? The nobility? The critics?!”

  “I’m sure they will agree with me, my dear.”

  ‘My dear’? Raoul had to fight to keep from laughing at the man's pathetic attempt to win Christine's affections. That anyone could use such a trite term of affection for a perfect beauty like Christine was absolutely absurd!

  “So you think I was wonderful anyway?”

  “Yes, Christine. There are no words to describe the beauty of your voice in any language. The angels wept tonight.”

  Raoul rolled his eyes in disgust. What a ridiculous thing to say. This nincompoop was no competition, he was sure of that.

  “Tell me more!” she demanded.

  “About what, my dear?”

  “How amazing I am!” she exclaimed, with an audible pout to those gorgeous lips, still sounding upset over her blunders in the opera. “Praise my intelligence, my poise, my beauty, my grace, everything! Tell me I’m the best pupil you’ve ever had!”

  “You are,” said the man, in a voice filled with sincerity and admiration.

  What a stupid sot this man is, thought Raoul. He doesn’t have the skill—the words—the wherewithal to praise her, even when she requests it. When he, the only true deserver of her affections, spoke to her again, he would shower her with so much praise, devotion, and adoration that she would melt in his hands.

  “Christine, why are you putting on more makeup?”

  “Because I want to speak to my admirers, that’s why—and that blasted doctor and his cold compress washed it all off my forehead!”

  “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather rest?”

  The next thing he would say would be, “Come lie down,” and then before Christine knew it, blast it, she would be in the arms of another man!

  Raoul drew his dagger, ready to fight to the death to keep Christine, and kicked the door in.

  Christine screamed as her door crashed to the floor. At first she was convinced it was an earthquake and started to call to the Angel to save her. But then she realized who was standing in the doorway. This did not make her any less afraid, however; the Angel could save her from a natural disaster, but not from the brash words of a vicomte.

  “Where is he?” demanded Raoul, brandishing his dagger. “Never fear, my dulcet diva—I will save you from this unspeakable dastard!” He grabbed her arm, and, pulling her past him through the doorway, he began to prowl behind the chairs and piles of clutter.

  She tugged her wrist out of his grasp. “Who?” she asked innocently, realizing with a furious scowl that he must have been listening. How could he do such a terrible thing? Perhaps he’d changed since those summers by the sea!

  Raoul threw back the closet doors with a jerk and checked suspiciously inside. Finding nothing, he turned sharply to Christine. “I heard his voice—don’t lie to me.”

  “Voice? W-what voice?”

  Having searched every possible hiding place, Raoul lowered his dagger—though he did not sheathe it—and turned to Christine. “Who was it, Christine? I’ll have his head on a platter for so much as speaking to you!”

  Christine had no reply. It was wonderfully gallant of Raoul to try to protect her, but the Angel was most assuredly listening. So, much as she wanted to thank Raoul for his bravery, she had to get him out of her dressing room as quickly as possible. “I told you,” she said distractedly, casting about for something to force him to leave,
“there wasn’t anyone.” Her eyes fell upon the broken door, and she suddenly got an idea.

  “Oh, Raoul,” she wailed, falling to her knees before the broken door, “how could you?”

  “Aha, you do know who I am—” He cut off as he realized why she was so upset. “Oh, Christine, I’m sorry,” he faltered, taken aback, “but you’re safety is worth more than any door—”

  “No,” she cried, twisting her expression into one of abject grief. “No! This door is irreplaceable! Oh, why did you have to break down my door?” As she pretended to cry, she studied the door’s painted surface. The single fleur-de-lis carved into the center had been smashed by Raoul’s boot. Besides that, it really was a pretty door. She’d never noticed.

  Raoul sheepishly sheathed his dagger. “I’m terribly sorry,” he said again, less loudly this time. “I’ll have it replaced as soon as possible.”

  “But my door—”

  “I promise,” he added hurriedly, frantic to placate her, “that I’ll buy you a door a hundred times more beautiful than this one. I’ll even have your name engraved in gold. How does that sound?”

  “Well, I—I suppose,” she sniffled, secretly overjoyed that he would spend so much money on her. Even Carlotta’s nameplate wasn’t made of gold. “Thank you.”

  He started towards the doorway, but abruptly turned around. “I’m going to get someone to help me move this. You’re coming with—I don’t want to leave you alone.”

  He was so thoughtful, so caring! No man had ever shown concern for her wellbeing before, especially not one so handsome. “Thank you,” she said, “but I’ll be fine. I’m going home now.”

  “Christine, that dastard might still be out there!”

  “But there wasn't—”

  “I won't take no for an answer.”

  “Well, all right,” she said, feigning reluctance. If allowing Raoul to accompany her home was the only way to keep him from snooping, surely the Angel couldn’t blame her! Grabbing the first shawl she saw, she hurriedly threw it over her shoulders. He was so handsome, so kind, so caring…. He had thought, after all, that he was coming to her aid. As she followed him down the hall, she breathed a sigh of relief. The Angel… She shuddered to think what he had thought.

  Chapitre Sept: La Notoriété

  Christine had become a celebrity overnight. The simple act of walking across the street—accompanied by shouts of “It’s Mademoiselle Daaé!” and people crowding all around—left her giddy and wondering if she were residing in a dream. Despite her mistakes in the opera (which she had been assured by countless people were so minor that no one even noticed), the newspapers described her as a goddess, an angel, a muse greater than any other in the history of song itself. She had had to ask the Angel what a muse was—she’d thought they were calling her “amusing”—but now that she knew what it meant, it was among her most favorite compliments. She was showered with a vast, endless deluge of praise, compared to the delightfully-pathetic drizzle Carlotta was receiving—more of a mist, actually, or even a drought. She had considered starting a list of all the compliments she received, but there were so many that she couldn’t keep up with them and decided to paste the newspaper clippings on her dressing room wall instead.

  Still, she couldn’t demand all the groveling and subservience that Carlotta had been able to, but she was confident that with a few tantrums and refusals to sing, she would be able to wield that kind of power. Carlotta sometimes disappeared for days, amused by the effect it had on the panicking managers, and Christine couldn’t wait to try out this tactic herself.

  The fame was so marvelous and so sudden that she was constantly lightheaded, and continued to make mistakes in the successive performances of Faust. Indeed, she had become so scatterbrained in the light of so much attention that she had given out several dozen autographs before realizing that she could charge people for them. Of course, she had given Meg, Madame Giry, and Monsieur Mercier autographs for free; it wouldn’t do to forget the little people who had helped her attain her fame. She almost presented the entire chorus and ballet free autographs, but when the first rat she generously offered one to just laughed at her and walked away, she remembered all the horrible things the rats had done to her and decided that she wouldn’t give them a single autograph no matter how much they begged. Besides, if she signed too many, they wouldn’t be worth as much; the Angel had explained that to her once when he was answering her question about the difference between capitalism and communism (his knowledge, it seemed, was by no means limited to music. She had contrived all kinds of impossible questions to test the limits of his genius, and had come up short). Despite this economic knowledge, she couldn’t resist whipping out her fountain pen every time someone approached her, which was quite often; she was spending a lot of time in cafés and department stores (a very recent and popular creation) enjoying the adoration of the public.

  The admirers she was most excited about were the fashionable French gentlemen, who flocked to the Garnier night and day to shower her with praise, poetry, trinkets, and flowers until her dressing room was untraversable for all the vegetation. She, never having possessed even one mildly-interested suitor in her life, was overcome with giddiness every time one of these gentlemen kissed her hand. Madame Giry had tried to warn these gentlemen away, as she had ever since Christine’s childhood, and Christine, good as she knew the ballet mistress’s intentions were, had been forced to set the kind woman straight—the last thing she wanted was to lose even one of these devoted admirers.

  Leading the reverence and adulation of Parisian gentlemen was the fabulous Vicomte de Chagny, who seemed to have dedicated his existence to winning her affections. He was a wonderful man; he was so handsome, so well-bred, so incredibly wealthy, and he was in madly love with her—everything she had ever wanted in a man. He had paid for a new door, as he had promised; the plaque upon its surface was solid gold and proclaimed, in shining, elaborate letters, “Mademoiselle Christine Daaé, Diva Extraordinaire.” It was so beautiful and so obviously expensive that she’d even considered having Raoul break a few more things so he could replace them. Sadly, though she wished she could sit back and enjoy his flattering attentions, it was so stressing looking over her shoulder every few minutes for the Angel that she hadn’t been able to enjoy one minute.

  Raoul himself had not been helping her anxiety either; when he had accompanied her home after breaking down her door (the Angel had not been pleased, but she had convinced him that she had nobly sacrificed her walk home to keep the vicomte from snooping or causing any further problems), he had bent down to kiss her when they reached the door of her apartment. She had jumped, caught by surprise that he would attempt something so forward after they had just barely met, and he had instead kissed her hand. She felt foolish, but—Angel or no—that she was glad Raoul had perceived her discomfort. He was incredibly handsome, and after he had courted her for a while (which she had no doubt he would do; he was obviously quite taken with her if he would risk seeming ungentlemanly as he had) she would be very happy to share a great number of kisses with him, but now was just too soon.

  The managers had offered her the lead role of the next opera, Idomeneo. It was a great honor, since she had not been a diva for more than a few days. But of course, she was utterly amazing, far better than any singer in Paris, or Europe for that matter, and so it was not surprising that they would beg her to continue her triumph. Still, it was an awful lot of work—months of rehearsals and scripts and choreography.

  But now that she had a taste of fame, she couldn’t bear to think of losing it. She would do better than simply fulfilling her father’s dream—she would become the most legendary and sought-after diva in the entire world. And Idomeneo was the next step on her road to celebrity—so she would play the lead in Idomeneo greater than it had ever been played before, even if it killed her.

  Christine muttered a curse as she threw piles of junk out of her closet, wondering sourly why she had so much worthless stuff
. It made it impossible to find anything. Of course, if she had ignored the Angel’s sermon on neatness and left everything out on the floor as it had been, there wouldn’t be a problem—it was having everything shoved into the closet that made it so miserable. But, she supposed, throwing out a stack of fading programs from past operas, if Raoul was going to be a frequent visitor to her dressing room, it wouldn’t do to greet him with a filthy mess. (Or even if he didn’t visit, there would assuredly be crowds of fans.)

  She stared at a strange little bent piece of metal she had unearthed, wondering what on earth it was. Oh yes, it was a part from one of the set-hoisting contraptions backstage. She had taken it so that a certain stagehand (who had been particularly rude to her the previous week) would be fired. She had felt a little guilty when he had been escorted from the Garnier, yelling that without a job he wouldn’t be able to feed his children. But it wasn’t as if she had broken the machine or anything; the part had already been on the floor and she had just picked it up. She hadn’t really done anything.

  She flung the metal part into the overflowing wastebasket, willing the guilt and bad memories to go with it, and recommenced her search. She threw a bunch of torn, crumpled papers in the direction of the trash, then stopped, picked one up, and decided she would keep them; she had collected them out of discarded copies of Godey’s Lady’s Book because she loved to admire the beautiful gowns and latest fashions.

  Christine was reaching the back of the closet now, and she drew a rune across her chest and prayed to the gods that she wouldn’t find any spiders.

  “Aha!” she cried as she cast aside a fallen dress to reveal a miniature hope chest. She had spent several hours in her search—first in her apartment and now in her dressing room—but perseverance had paid off. As she picked it up, she fearfully inspected all sides of the little box for arachnids, and was relieved to find nothing but dust.