Phantom (55 page)

The man grew very still and in the darkness I saw his eyes widen with disbelief.

"You know Erik?" he whispered in awe.

"I am going to meet him now, on the banks of the underground lake."

The man stared at me for a moment, then slowly crossed himself. As he fumbled inside his pocket and brought out a

small packet, I was able to see that his eyes had filled with tears.

"
God bless you and keep you, mademoiselle," he said emotionally, "God make His face to shine upon you all the days of your life. So you are his little angel. When he asked me to order all those ladies' garments, I was so afraid that the solitude and
—
and this"
—
he tapped the packet significantly
—"
must have turned his mind
."

Reaching out impulsively the man lifted my gloved hand to his lips.

"So it was for you, the wedding dress and the ring. Mademoiselle, I can't tell you how happy I am to make the acquaintance of such a very great lady. I can't tell you how glad—"

He halted abruptly, as though embarrassed by his own indiscretion.

"
Give him this for me, " he continued, making an effort to speak with calm detachment. "Erik was to have met me here a week ago, and when he did not come I was afraid that
—
that
. . .
but I can see I was wrong, quite wrong." The man handed me the packet with a sigh. "I daresay you know what this is, but you must not despair, mademoiselle, truly you must not. For your sake he will find the strength to stop. I think he would cut out his heart to please you… but of course, you know that. I hope you will not think me presumptuous if I say that God has surely chosen you in His wisdom, just as He once chose Our Lady. Mademoiselle… I shall remember you both in my prayers tonight
.

Once more he clutched my hand and then, overcome with emotion, he suddenly hurried away down the Rue Scribe, got into the brougham that was waiting there, and drove off.

I was left staring down at the packet of morphine that lay in my gloved hand.

Erik had the wedding dress and the ring. All he needed was the bride… I stiffened in sudden fear as the significance of the man's words bore down upon me.

Erik should have met him here a week ago.

Why hadn't he kept so important an appointment?

Unfastening the gates I ran down the black passages to the lake. The air was dank and chill beside the water, and the candle I had lit barely penetrated the thick gloom along the bank.

There was no one waiting for me and no sign of a lantern bobbing on the lake.

"Erik?"

My voice echoed eerily in the blackness, seeming unnaturally loud in the vaulted cavern. And when there was no response, terror descended upon me, the raw disbelieving fear of a child abandoned in the dark.

"Erik… are you there?"

The silence mocked me, leered at me from the leaden waters; the candle wavered and went out, leaving me trembling with fear, frustration, and mounting panic.

"Erik, where are you?" I screamed. "Erik!"

"Hush… I am here."

His hand fell lightly on my shoulder, and my breath seemed to stop as he turned me slowly round to face him. The yellow light of his magic lantern now showed me his powerful, shadowed figure enveloped in the familiar swirling cloak, made the mask and the frills of his dress shirt seem luminously white. Darkness framed him so magnificently, showed only what he wanted me to see. One sob of relief from me in that moment and I believe he would have taken me in his arms; but, though my eyes were full of

tears, I was suddenly consumed with anger at his willful deception.

"You were here all the time, weren't you? Why didn't you answer me?"

He sighed and stood back from me and immediately the moment was gone.

"A little scientific experiment, child… a study of that curiosity known as human behavior."

"A very cruel experiment, don't you think?" I retorted with some bitterness.

"Science is never as cruel as love," he said simply. "Come with me now. The boat is moored nearby."

I followed his outstretched hand… followed the man who was my dark angel, my guardian, friend, and father; followed him deeper into a kingdom where there was neither dawn nor sunset, into a timeless world of endless night.

The house on the lake was very warm. The contrast of atmospheres made me cough, and instantly Erik turned to me with an intense concern that should have warned me.

"What's wrong with your throat?" he demanded with anxiety.

"
It's only a cold," I hastened to reassure him. "I sang over it quite easily, and no one noticed anything was wrong. There was a full standing ovation. Oh, I wish you had been there to hear it
— "

"You think it would have given me pleasure to hear you ruining your voice?" he demanded ominously.

"
Erik, I couldn't possibly have refused to go on
—"

He brought his fist down on the keyboard of the piano with uncontrollable fury.

"How dare you perform in defiance of my known instructions! You vain and stupid child, have you learned nothing?"

I crept to the sofa and sank down in terror.

"I'm sorry," I whimpered, "I didn't think it would matter just this once."

"You have no discipline, " he said furiously, "no self restraint! I suppose the Vicomte de Chagny was in the audience tonight. I suppose he sent flowers to your room and invited you to supper. You sang to please him tonight, not me. For the sake of that damned boy you would risk your pitch and flexibility and high pianissimo?"

I burrowed into the cushions of the sofa in a vain attempt to distance myself from his demented rage. This was not the cold, controlled anger he had shown over the spider, but an irrational, aggressive fury that I suddenly understood might boil into violence at a single wrong word. I had been so sure he would never hurt me, but now as I saw those hands clenched into ugly fists upon the piano, I remembered how they had once fastened in a murderous grip around my neck. I remembered, and in remembering, wondered how I could ever have forgotten.

Silent tears rolled down my cheeks as I bowed my head and let him rain curses on my infantile folly without a word of protest. I dared not move or speak.

At last he was silent; the rage was gone and he looked down on me with sudden remorse and familiar tenderness.

"Forgive me, " he said gently. "I forget how young you are, how susceptible to the temptations that surround you. But you must not abuse my most precious possession and expect me to say 'well done.' Now… please dry your tears and blow your nose, my dear. You know I can't bear to see you cry."

"I c-can't, " I stammered, hunting nervously through my pockets, "I can't seem to find my handkerchief. I m-m-

must have dropped it when we came across the lake. Do you have any h-h-handkerchiefs, Erik?"

He looked at me so sadly that I could have bitten my clumsy, stuttering tongue.

"I don't have much call for handkerchiefs, my dear… There are certain advantages, you see, in being without a nose."

My hand flew to my mouth.

"Oh, Erik! I didn't think, I'm so sorry! Please don't give it another thought, I can quite easily sniff."

"There are few things more objectionable than a sniffing child, " he said ruefully. "Wait here and I'll see what I can find."

He was gone some considerable time, but when he returned at length he brought with him some half-a-dozen lace-trimmed ladies' handkerchiefs. I saw at once that they were not new, like the other items in my room. Each one had been carefully folded on a sprig of lavender and bore the initial
M
in one corner
.

"I see you're looking at the initial, " he observed rather wearily. "I can assure you they didn't belong to a former admirer! If you look carefully you will see the lace is quite yellow with age and disuse. The owner has been dead for twenty years."

He walked away to the fireplace, and as I studied his stiff, unbending figure I suddenly understood who that owner must have been.

"What was your mother's name?" I asked softly.

There was a long silence before he turned to look at me.

"Madeleine," he said.

He spoke the word as though it were a prayer, with an extraordinary resonance which seemed to make each of the three syllables tremble on the air for a moment, like an echo.

"What a lovely name!" I exclaimed with involuntary envy. I wanted to hear him say it again, but something about the way he looked at me made me change my mind hurriedly. There was an ambivalence in his eyes that rather frightened me, and yet I was gripped by a deep and primitive curiosity that would not be denied, even by vague fear. If his mother had been dead for twenty years, then she must have died in 1861, the same year that I had been born in Sweden.

A dull buzzing seemed to throb through my veins, as though my entire body was echoing the frantic rhythm of my pounding heart.

"Do you have a likeness of her?" I demanded suddenly.

He stood so still and tensely that he might have been carved out of black granite. Then from a second casket on the mantelpiece he drew a small hinged double picture frame, containing two faded line portraits, and gave it to me.

One portrait was of a dark-haired man, approaching early middle age, but enormously good looking, with gentle, humorous eyes. And the other…

The other was me!

Old-fashioned hairstyle and a certain hardness about the lips and eyes, but unquestionably me.

Erik leaned forward, took the picture frame from my quivering hand, and replaced it in the casket.

"How is this possible?" I whispered. "How can it have happened?"

He shrugged. "From time to time certain bone structures are repeated without a blood tie. No human face is entirely unique, my dear. I daresay somewhere in the world there may be another poor devil who looks like me."

"Tell me about her, Erik."

"I would rather not," he said coldly.

"Please!" I persisted with urgency. "I must know something. "

"She was very young and very beautiful, "he began with reluctance, speaking in sharp bursts, as though clipped sentences might minimize his pain, "She hated me and I hated her. I ran away from her when I was about nine… I'm sorry! Do you mind? I can't talk about this!"

He turned his back on me and spread his hands against the mantelpiece, the cloak unfurling from his arms like the wings of a bat. After a moment he told me rather harshly that he would be very much obliged if I simply took my cold off to bed.

Taking the packet of morphine from my pocket, I looked at it sadly before laying it on the manuscript
o/*Don Juan Triumphant,
where I knew he was sure to find it
.

Then I did what any sensible person surely does when Erik gives her a direct command.

I obeyed him without question.

It's been five days now since Erik permitted me to sing. For two days I wasn't allowed to open my mouth at all, but spent my time obediently swallowing the potions he gave me at

regular intervals and communicating with him when necessary by note. In this matter of my voice his regime remains as stern and unbending as it was in those days when I knew him only as the Angel of Music. Absolute dedication to my vocation, absolute submission to his will.

"If you don't keep silent, I shall be obliged to gag you,"

he said, and in spite of the gentle humor of his tone I knew instinctively that he was prepared to carry out that threat if necessary.

He wrote a letter to the management, instructing them to call upon the services of the understudy during the period of my indisposition, then proceeded to cosset and care for me as though I were no more than four years old. I spent a good deal of time lying on the sofa beneath a blanket, staring surreptitiously at the casket on the mantelpiece. I wanted to look at that portrait of his mother again, for its very presence in the room seemed to obsess me, but I knew that for his sake I must make no reference to what was rapidly becoming an
idee fixe.
This strange, cruel twist to our curious relationship would not bear the weight of examination. But I thought endlessly about the woman I resembled, wondering what she must have done to make him hate her and remember that hatred with such terrible pain. Sometimes I wonder if he's ever known a single moment of true happiness here on this earth
…

Yesterday, announcing my vocal cords to be free of infection, he permitted me to try a few scales, listening with terrifying intensity to the quality of my pitch. Evidently what he heard caused him satisfaction, for he said I might continue my lessons today and resume my role of Margarita at the Opera the following night.

"… and this evening, if the air continues mild enough for your throat, we might take a carriage out to the Bois. Would you like that, Christine?"

"Yes, " I said, with slight surprise. We had occasionally rowed on the lake or walked along the bank, but this was the first time he had ever suggested taking me out into the real world above.

The day passed as quickly as all the other days I had spent

in his company. In the afternoon he permitted me to explore his laboratory, which was a truly wondrous place, answering my questions with a simplicity that neither patronized nor bored, encouraging me to experiment with his many devices just as I wished.

"Are you really sure you want me to meddle, Erik? I might break something that you can't mend."