Si je devais donner mon cœur sur la terre, elle n’avait plus, elle... la Voix, qu’à remonter au ciel. (Ch. XIII, “La Lyre d’Apollon”)
The electric light cast harsher shadows and the gilding was burnished a little uneven with age. But time had been good to the Opera House, Christine Daaé thought, pausing on the stairs. The strident brightness of twenty years ago — when the building had been little older than her own nascent career — had lost its garish edge and matured to a warm serene glow.
And if the bright lights betrayed the first traces of lines around her eyes and at the laughing corners of her mouth, her voice had grown along with her beloved Opera to its full golden power. Every birth-pang and hard-bought wisdom in those years had taught it fresh depths, and each passing season brought the diva more truly into the hearts of Paris.
A half-smile, remembering gaucheness — heartbreak — scandal. No, she would not trade those years of happiness for anything... least of all to be twenty again. The applause from tonight’s gala was still ringing in her ears, mingled now with the eager buzz of voices from the subscribers gathering below.
La Daaé laid one hand on the stair rail; lifted the other briefly to settle the long diamond drops in her ears before beginning to descend. They had been a gift for this performance from her chief — indeed, her universally-acknowledged — admirer, and the light caress against her neck brought memories of its own. Her smile softened into affection... widened again into polished, professional courtesy on the first landing, where she ran into the Count de Chagny, who was ascending.
“Madame, a triumph.” There was genuine appreciation in the rather hard eyes, and she took it as her due. No-one, after all, had ever been able to fault Philippe’s taste.
The high forehead was wider now, but age and grey hair had done him no ill-favours — he was as self-possessed and elegant as ever — and family responsibilities had tempered the arrogance somewhat. There had been a state of armed truce between them for years, culminating in the whole Eustacie affair; but the Count was gracious enough to accept well-bred defeat, and she had never been one to hold a grudge. He had kept his word, after all, to use the de Chagny influence in her favour during that first fragile blossoming of her career.
So they met, these days, with smiles of mutual acknowledgement and the guarded welcome of long acquaintance, and the matter of Raoul and his heirs lay unspoken between them. Paris had long since accepted the situation, and — though she would never have said it — Philippe had only himself to blame.
She held out a hand and he stooped to salute it, the grey head bent with practised courtesy.
“Truly magnificent, Madame. A wonderful evening; a tremendous performance. The new Thaïs is exquisite, and the corps de ballet excelled themselves.”
La Daaé laughed, accepting his arm as they descended. “You have Little Giry’s discipline to thank for that, Count. The Baron’s gain was our loss: our prima ballerina is most sadly missed.”
She had wondered sometimes, of late, if she could ever have done as Meg Giry had done: played off a dozen admirers against one another at arm’s length, and found a way into honourable marriage at the peak of her career. The black flashing eyes of the Baroness de Castelot-Barbezac were as bright in her dark little face as ever, but the gleaming stone on her finger mocked at Philippe de Chagny and those of his generation, and she had her own box at the Opera now.
But she, Christine, would not have had those years in Raoul’s arms — those years when they had laughed together in the face of the world like the two young fools in love that they had been. A young man on leave could take his mistress almost anywhere, and Raoul had: at first with the Count’s amused approval, and then — as months lengthened into years and her first discreet retirement from the stage had come and gone with no sign that the Viscount would look elsewhere — to his brother’s increasingly frustrated fury. Raoul was to marry; to achieve the rank of Admiral, maintain the family traditions and carry on the de Chagny line, not to keep supporting an increasingly irregular ménage in cheerful disregard of the Count’s most cherished plans.
At thirty, he’d seemed in a fair way to inherit his brother’s mantle as a firmly-established bachelor, with all the licence that implied. But he’d been a fine marital catch for all that, and there had proved to be no shortage of girls and their mothers over the next few years prepared to overlook the Viscount’s indiscreet private life in support of Count Philippe’s ambitions. Eustacie had been only the last — and most determined — in a long line.
The girl had genuinely fallen for Raoul, Christine acknowledged now with a touch of regret. She’d been a de Chagny cousin on their mother’s side, little more than a babe in arms when the old Count had died, and she’d toddled after the boy in childhood on her mother’s infrequent visits. Raoul had laughed to see her all grown up; but he’d been kind to her, danced with her, and — without meaning it — had swept her off her feet. The raised hopes, the greed, and the family scenes that had followed Christine laid entirely, as always, to Philippe’s account.
She cast a sidelong glance at the handsome, aging face. Well, he finally had what he wanted, even if not the way he’d wanted it. The marriage had made him easier to live with, at least, and for Raoul’s sake she could be glad of that. Eustacie had her title, her wealth and her babies... and if her bargain had not brought her the love of the man she’d fought so hard to get, the trade was no fault but her own.
Heads turned in the room below as La Daaé came down the staircase, a stir running through the bright-coloured throng, and the Count de Chagny beside her bent his head in acknowledgment, presenting with a gesture the diva on his arm. There were faces she knew, others she recognised from boxes on the Grand Tier tonight: the Prefect of Police, two ministers and a chief commissioner, and a whole galaxy of uniforms, stars and beribboned orders. There were friends too, colleagues and companions with whom she’d argued, laughed and traded tales, and women who’d welcomed her warmly as hostess. But the fervour of applause that rose up to meet her was homage to her art, and as such she responded, taking her due with the grace of a lifetime.
Her eyes were seeking all the while through the crowd for the one face that really mattered; the one beloved pair of shoulders she would know at a glimpse in the dark... There! At the foot of the bannister, with his hands held out and pride and joy in every line of his body: Raoul’s infectious delight woke her own laughter, as always.
And there beside him stood Eustacie, caught for a moment unawares and all too clear to read. She alone had not turned to watch the triumph of the moment: her gaze was for the Viscount... watching, as ever, to see his go elsewhere.
La Daaé, who had a kind heart, kept her features schooled to polite courtesy as he caught her hand and kissed it, and saw his own formal mask slip back on in response. But it was an empty gesture. Raoul had never learned to guard his eyes.
“Madame.” She made her courtesy to Eustacie de Chagny, and acknowledged the reluctant response. “The Count has been kindness itself... I hope you enjoyed the performance?”
“Indeed. The view from our box was excellent.” It was a stiff little voice with the stilted vowels of one who still feared to find herself provincial, and made her sound more a schoolgirl than the great lady she hoped to be. Clearly conscious of it, Eustacie flushed. “Philippe particularly commended the ballet.”
And there was that topic of conversation exhausted... Sighing inwardly, Christine tried again. “I believe I glimpsed your son, Madame, the other day when you were out in the carriage. You must both be very proud of him — a fine, well-grown boy.”
Eustacie’s head came up. “Yes, Pierre is a great comfort to me... and everyone says he bears the true de Chagny stamp.”
As did her own Georges and Sébastien — all too plainly. Christine’s eyes met Raoul’s in a shared rueful glance, as the corner of his mouth twitched. At least little Lucie took after her mother...
It was a pity the children could not get to know their ‘cousins’; but Philippe had always done his utmost to avoid acknowledging the existence of his brother’s irregular offspring. The Daaé children had tumbled their cheerful way towards adulthood secure in their father’s affections, with the acceptance that there was a part of his life they would never know. The Count would have been so proud of Georges, eager and alert in his cadet’s uniform, or Bastien, the image of that boy to whom Philippe had become a second father — but stubbornness still kept them adamantly apart.
She appealed suddenly to the younger woman on impulse. “I wish you would come out to see us sometime at Louveciennes, Madame de Chagny, and bring Pierre — and the little one. We keep a very informal household, my maid and I, and you would be most welcome... and I promise I wouldn’t subject you to the threat of any music!”
What harm could it do, after all? Philippe had his legitimate heir — his next Count de Chagny — and that was all he’d ever cared for. Poor Eustacie was lying in the bed she’d made for herself... at Philippe’s instigation.
But if one was to be honest, that was not any of it quite true. The Count truly cared for Raoul — had always done so, even when they were most at odds — and whatever their history, he had a warm affection for Eustacie. If the girl had thought this marriage would bring her closer to Raoul, then she was a fool, and that was that.
Eustacie’s sniff rejected any overtures of friendship. “Oh, I wouldn’t put you to such trouble, I assure you.”
The lights overhead flickered briefly as if in echo, and all around them conversation ebbed for a moment before redoubling in response.
“Sometimes, I’d swear this place was alive,” Raoul said under his breath, half in jest; but Eustacie’s eyes flew to his face and she shivered, catching at his sleeve.
“Don’t say that — haven’t you heard the stories..?”
It was a blatant ploy, and the Count’s lips tightened at the gaucheness of it. Raoul exchanged a glance with his brother before setting his arm briefly around her shoulders in reassurance.
“I grew up on stories, Eustacie — when I was little I used to beg them from the peasants — and some of those fairytales would have made your hair curl. But I promise you there’s nothing to be scared of here.”
It was the older-cousin tone he would have used to her as a child, and she lifted her chin with a flashing look of female challenge. “Then why don’t you ask Christine Daaé, who’s been at the Opera so long? Why don’t you ask her — about the accidents... the deaths... the chandelier? Why don’t you ask her about the Opera Ghost?”
It was spite — poor jealous spite. Eustacie was too young: she could not know. Nobody knew.
But forgotten horror and pity came clawing back at Christine, and she could feel the colour draining from her cheeks. Above the girl’s oblivious head she could see the same white shock shadowed in Raoul’s eyes; she’d told him the true story, in the end. Most of it.
She took a deep breath, mastering herself as if on stage.
“As you say, Madame, I’ve been here a long time.” She made the words as civil as she could. “And those were rumours for foolish girls when I was little more than a girl myself. If you have heard of the accident with the chandelier, then you must have heard of the poor deformed creature they found hanging a few months later below the stage. And that was the last death that anyone has heard of in this place, and the last of the stories of a ghost. It was all over — all over, a long time ago.”
She had thought he might die of grief or that he might kill her for her betrayal; but he had done neither, her Angel of Music who was only Erik, only a man. He had taken his own life in the blackness of his despairing domain, and it was her hand that had set the noose around his throat as surely as if she had been there to see it.
She had dreamed of that horror on nights when Raoul was not with her. And she would never know if it was the talk of her loss of virtue that Erik had been unable to bear... or of her happiness.
“So you see there is no mystery and no ghost.” Raoul’s voice was almost rough. “Tonight is Miss Daaé’s night, and we have been less than courteous in distressing her... Brother, don’t you think the hour grows a little late for Eustacie?”
It was a temerity that verged on outright dismissal, and the young woman’s mouth dropped open as if he had slapped her; but Philippe de Chagny nodded, looking grim, and held out his arm.
“Come.” The single curt syllable offered no alternative, and the Countess, head held defiantly high, set her hand on her husband’s sleeve and allowed herself to be towed away.
Trembling more than she had realised, Christine let out a long breath and felt the comfort of Raoul’s arm around her waist, heedless of the crowds around them.
“She doesn’t know, of course... She just wants to make me feel my age.” She gave a shaky laugh; at that moment every one of those years — and more — seemed graven in her flesh. “The little cat... She should never have married him. Sooner or later she’ll go too far.”
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