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

by Dayna Stevenson

  Small talk transpired between them, mostly about the beauty of the evening and how amazing their surroundings were. Raoul seemed uninterested on the latter note, but Christine, despite her worrying, couldn’t help being enthralled. Compared to the grandeur of Les Ambassadeurs, the Pavillon Ledoyen had a subdued charm. The walls were covered with incredibly soft brown velvet that glowed gold in the lamplight. Supple red curtains hung on either side of each pair of windows and a bouquet of red roses graced the center of each table. Christine was charmed by the flowers’ subtle scent.

  During her visual wanderings, their first course arrived. She wasn’t entirely certain what Feuilleté Brioché de Truffes Noires was (it looked like bread to her); though it was quite good, she ate little, and refused to touch the wine. Raoul seemed puzzled by her lack of appetite, though he did not mention it. The second course—some type of exotic fish—made her feel even sicker, and she refused to eat any of it.

  Halfway through the dinner, which, despite how wonderful, magnificent, and expensive it was, Christine simply couldn’t manage to enjoy, she couldn’t stand it any longer.

  “Are you engaged to a comtess?” she blurted.

  Raoul choked on his bouillabaisse, and while Christine waited for him to recover, every passing second made her feel weaker, sicker, and more regretful of her stupid outburst.

  “Where—where did you hear that?” managed Raoul, taking a large swallow of wine to clear his throat.

  She panicked for a moment, not wanting to implicate Meg—Raoul could easily have her fired—and trying furiously to think of a way to close the whole issue before it ruined her relationship. “Just some stagehand,” she said hurriedly. “But it’s not important and I’m sure you’re not and I’m sorry to have brought it up especially during dinner—”

  “No, no, my plum, it’s quite all right; I am more than happy to lay your unreasonable fears to rest. This buffoon of a stagehand is very stupidly—or maliciously—mistaken. I am not engaged at all.” He took her hand and caressed it gently. Her sleeve, absurdly large and awkward, trailed in a bowl of sauce, but she didn’t care. “I have eyes for no one but you, my angel, my precious, my darling!”

  “He said her name was Veronique de la something-or-other, and that she was a comtess,” continued Christine tentatively, not quite reassured.

  Raoul smiled—a large, rather forced smile—and patted her hand. “Ah yes, the Comtess de la Musardiere. She is my brother’s fiancée.”

  “She is?”

  Raoul nodded. “Of course. Perhaps this man simply confused mine and my brother’s titles.”

  “Oh, of course,” she echoed, the relief taking all the strength and tension out of her muscles and allowing her to sit back in her chair.

  “An honest mistake, I’m sure.”

  “Yes. I’m so sorry, Raoul.”

  He waved a hand. “No apology is necessary, my heavenly Helen, my vision of a Venus—a simple misunderstanding. But surely you have more faith in me than that?” He smiled to let her know he was jesting.

  “Yes, yes, I’m sorry! But wait—this means Veronique and I will be sisters!” she exclaimed, clapping her hands in sudden delight.

  He looked confused for a moment, then said suddenly, “Oh, you mean when we’re married! Yes, I suppose you will be.”

  “When can I meet her?”

  “After we’re married, my brilliant beauty. She’s simply frightful. I wouldn’t want her to scare you off.”

  “There isn’t a chance of that,” she said. “Give your brother my congratulations!” After a moment of relieved cheeriness, Christine hesitated, thinking back on a conversation she overheard a week ago. “But I was certain I heard the managers say that your brother was too shy around women to ever get married.”

  “Well, he’s shy around most women, but he admires Veronique’s intelligence, or something like that.” She noticed that his frown had deepened. “Let us return to our dinner, my pet, and forget all about all of this.”

  She smiled brilliantly and returned to her food, able to appreciate its exotic and marvelous flavors now that the absurd shadow of doubt had been erased. She would have to apologize to Meg for being so mean; obviously the poor girl had heard Mercier wrong. Well, Meg never had been the brightest; it was an easy mistake. In her light and bubbly happiness that everything was right and wonderful in her world again, she decided generously to forgive Meg and forget the whole thing.

  Chapitre Dix-Huit: La Attaque de Buquet

  Seven days after Christine’s return to the Garnier found her skipping down a hallway towards the opera’s tiny chapel in the best of moods. Nothing could ruin her day. She had just passed La Carlotta in a side foyer, and the ex-diva, snarling in jealousy, had screeched something foul in Spanish at her. Christine, having no idea what any of it meant, just smiled her best saccharine smile and flounced past. The role reversal gave her a giddy feeling of absolute power. Being able to play the haughty, unimpressed diva, ignoring the insignificant screaming ballet rat—she felt like a god. Ah, Hel, she sighed, is this what it felt like to listen to the almighty Aesirs’ cries, pleading with you to release their beloved Baldr—to listen to those who cast you down to the Underworld beg for mercy—and laugh in their faces?

  Once inside the chapel, she pirouetted across the small room towards the altar she had constructed out of loose stones. “Oh, Father,” she cried, addressing the photograph upon the stone surface, “it is a magnificent day! Everything is absolutely wonderful! I couldn’t be happier if I were a guest in Asgard itself!” She struck a match and lit the wax stump atop the stone slab, then began to kneel in front of the altar, but she was so excited thinking of her success that she had to stand. “I’m a diva and now even the great Carlotta Torres has to bow down to me! The managers let me do whatever I want—well, not as much as Carlotta could get away with, but still, chocolates and dresses and pearls and everything else I want! Except rehearsal postponements. I somehow can’t convince them to let me push the show back a few months. It would give me time to relax and appreciate my finery, you know, instead of just practicing all the time. And they won’t let me give Meg the part of Elettra; I know the cast has already been set, and that Elettra is the evil lady and sweet little Meg doesn’t fit the part, but I really wanted to make up for the mean things I’ve done and I figure since I’ve become such a huge success that it was the least I could do to help her a little, you know? But the managers wouldn’t go along with it. I finally convinced them—with Erik’s help—to let her have this one small part, so at least she’s more elevated than a pathetic, line-less member of the chorus.”

  She twirled over to the tiny window and pulled back the dingy curtain to let in some light. But it was already quite dark outside. Where had the day gone? It was mid-November, yes, but it shouldn’t have been dark so soon! “Erik may be frightening to look at,” she continued, “but I’m fairly used to it by now and he’s a marvelous instructor—better than any I can find, actually—and everyone is absolutely breath-taken with the progress I’ve made as a singer!”

  Actually, now that she thought about it, the Norse translation her father had used when speaking of the Angel was Skrípi av Songr—which, as closely as it could be translated, meant “Phantom of Song.” She smiled at the irony. Then she remembered what she had been about to say and continued, “And don’t worry, Father—with all the money I’m going to be receiving I’ll build you a proper altar, right in the middle of the main lobby, with a statue of you playing your violin and a gold plaque that says, ‘Gustave Daaé, Master Violinist and Father of Christine Daaé, Diva Extraordinaire’! And then everyone that comes to the opera will see it and think, ‘Goodness, this Monsieur Daaé must have been a great man to be the father of the marvelous diva, Mademoiselle Daaé!

  “Oh!” she exclaimed. “I forgot to tell you! It’s not going to be ‘Mademoiselle Daaé’ for much longer, Father—I’m going to be Madame le Vicomtess de Chagny! Can you believe it? I mean, I always knew he loved me�
��who wouldn’t—but just think, me, a vicomtess! Of course, he hasn’t exactly proposed yet, but he’s showered me with all kinds of expensive gifts and taken me out to dinner three times, and he constantly teases me with talk of ‘when I live in his mansion.’ Look!” She offered her hand for her father to see. “Just look at this ring! It’s a half-carat diamond! I’m not sure what a carat is, but Raoul said a half-carat is worth lots of money. And that’s what counts! He didn’t say it was an engagement ring, but what else could it possibly be? And when Raoul’s brother—goodness, I can’t even remember his name—when Raoul’s brother dies, I’ll be a comtess! You never imagined that your poor peasant daughter would become a French comtess, did you!

  “But don’t worry, I’ll still become a world-famous diva before I marry. Raoul says it wouldn’t be proper for a comtess—I mean, a vicomtess—to be a singer, you know? I’ll still sing at parties, certainly, but the world will just have to learn to live without its Diva Extraordinaire.”

  She had been chattering on without really listening to herself, but suddenly she realized what she was saying. “I’m not giving up your dream, Father,” she told the photograph hastily. “I’m going to see it through. But after a few months, I’m going to retire to my mansion by the Seine.” His eyes stared up at her, looking disappointed and accusing. Suddenly the giddiness of her wonderful day—like sparkling, ephemeral bubbles floating inside her chest—froze and crashed at the bottom of her stomach.

  “It’s not as if I’m failing you,” she protested. “I’ll make our name famous. But after that, I’m going to fulfill my own dreams. That’s all right, isn’t it, Father?” It wasn’t as if she didn’t want to be a diva—she had wanted it so badly since she was hired at the Garnier that it had dominated her thoughts during every practice, every performance, like a burning ache in her stomach that attacked with pangs of shame and desperation whenever she dwelled upon her own wretched poverty and sub-standard talent. And even now, so close to fame and divahood, she felt as if she were being suffocated under the weight of her father’s expectations.

  She looked away, unable to bear his gaze any longer. “It’s not as if I’m marrying some penniless oaf—he’s a vicomte! He lives in the Champs Élysées, for Odin’s sake! His family name goes back to the time of Charlemagne! Don’t you want your daughter to live in comfort?”

  Her father didn’t reply. Strangely, even after all these years, she still half-expected to hear his voice. When she was a child, she would have given anything to hear it again—but now…

  She sat for a while, thinking about her life and how many years she had wasted concentrating on music—her father’s love more than hers—when she could have been married, wearing fancy dresses, attending balls….

  Finally she realized that, for the first time in her life, she was facing the truth about her father’s dream—and the dark, tiny chapel, which had seemed like a safe haven for so many years, suddenly felt like a prison to her. Sitting there, trying to explain to her father that she didn’t want to follow his dream anymore, made her feel like Loki, chained under Jörmungand, the world snake—a member of his own family—who would steadily drip poison on his face until the end of time.

  The religious reference brought forth another problem to mind, one that she was unwilling to face. “They can’t both be true,” she murmured, more to herself than to her father. Meeting the Angel, listening to his purely Christian descriptions of Heaven, had shaken her religious convictions more than she had originally realized. Even though he wasn’t really the Angel, she couldn’t smooth over the chasm that had so irreconcilably divided the two religions: the pantheon or monotheism; eternal darkness or Heavenly bliss; daughterly loyalty or treachery.

  The picture stared blankly, and suddenly she couldn’t take any more of the prison or religious thought. She stood abruptly, and blew out the candle.

  Christine tried to speak, but couldn’t form the words, and turned and ran out of the chapel.

  She walked through the hall in a much more somber mood than when she had entered. She hadn’t felt any anger from her father, but she also hadn’t felt any forgiveness. She couldn’t feel anything.

  She headed out to the back alley. She didn’t want to see anyone on her way back to her dressing room. She needed to think.

  Now that she had Raoul, and Erik, and her position as a diva of the largest opera house in the world, she had been thinking about her father less and less. He had been the center of her life for so many years, around which her every thought, every action revolved, but now—she found that, for better or for worse, she couldn’t bring herself to cling to the past anymore. But she couldn’t bring herself to feel either joy or sorrow from her liberation. She wasn’t sure what to think.

  She was so engrossed in her thoughts that she didn’t notice the man approaching from the other end of the deserted alleyway. It wasn’t until she was less than five feet away from him that she finally looked up.

  Joseph Buquet grinned at her. “Top a’ th’ evenin’ t’ yeh, missie diva ex’trordinaire.” He took a swig from the foul-smelling bottle he was holding, uncaring of the beer dripping down his chin. His words were slow and slurred, indicating the extent of his inebriation.

  “Hello,” she said shortly. She didn’t like Buquet. Not that she knew him well—she didn’t know any of the stagehands—but he seemed like a very offending, uncouth sort of man, and he was always drunk. One of the teachings handed down by Odin, chief of the gods, was that intoxication was among the greatest humiliations a man could bring upon himself.

  “Hear yer gettin’ awful chummy wi’ tha’ vicomte fella.”

  “Yes—we’re going to be married,” said Christine, rather annoyed. “Not that it’s any of your business.”

  Buquet’s laugh was cut off by a loud belch. “It mos’ certunly is, girlie.” His S’s dragged until they became almost snakelike, and he kept pausing between words to allow his affected thoughts to catch up with his mouth. “I s’pose you won’ want nothin’ t’ do with yer fellow…employees…when y’ got someone like th’ famous Vicomte de Ssssh-agny.”

  “That’s absolutely right.” Christine stuck her nose in the air and started to stride past him.

  Suddenly he leapt forward and pinned Christine to the grimy wall with strength that defied his drunken state. His voice became vicious and loud. “See, when little rats like you gets too big for their skirts,” he said, his foul breath making Christine choke, “an’ start thinkin’ they’re too good for us poor stagehands, tha’s when we gotta step in an’ set ‘em straight.”

  “What are you going to do?” Christine gasped, realizing that her fingernails would do no good against Buquet’s thick jacket. She tried to wrench his arm away, but she couldn’t even budge it.

  He laughed at her pathetic attempts to free herself and downed the rest of the bottle.

  Suddenly he smashed it against the brick wall, sending shards of glass flying like shrapnel. He held the bottle’s neck up to her face, letting the jagged edges rest against her trembling skin. “I’m goin’ t’ carve a few lines in t’ that pretty little face a’ yers, missie diva ex’trordinaire…. Tha’ vicomte sure’s Hell won’ be int’rested in yeh then.”

  “No, no, you wouldn’t! You couldn’t! Help! Help! Somebody!” Christine screamed, trying to kick Buquet in the shins.

  “Tha’ won’ work, girlie. Th’ kinds a’ people that’re roamin’ th’ streets a’ this time a’ night”—his laugh sprayed beer and spittle all over Christine’s face—“ain’t likely t’ be helping yeh. An’ if’n anyone is, they’ll be too late.”

  “Odin! Thor! Forseti!” she whimpered, whipping through the names of all the gods, praying for a miracle. Surely the Aesir would not refuse to aid one of the few loyal followers left in the world! But despite her desperate faith, no mounted valkyrie flew down from the clouds to save her; no dwarven‑forged hammer swung down at Thor’s command to her rescue. Raoul, she cried silently, where are you?

&nbs
p; She screamed with all her might as she felt the glass start to press into her skin.

  Suddenly a rope materialized around Buquet’s neck, violently jerking the man backwards. In the dim light, she could see a black-shrouded figure tightening the rope, and Buquet’s disgusting, pockmarked face turn a dead white as he gasped for air. She could feel rage emanating from the mysterious figure, and she saw his eyes blaze in the light of a distant streetlamp. She recognized those emerald eyes with a shout of joy.

  Suddenly, just as she was certain Buquet’s neck would snap, the man released his grip, and the stagehand fell unconscious to the muddy ground with a thump.

  “Why didn’t you kill him?” she demanded as Erik unwound the lasso from around Buquet’s neck.

  Erik straightened up. “Why on earth would I do that?” he asked, obviously surprised.

  “He was going to disfigure me! Cut up my beautiful face! He deserves to die!”

  “Believe me, Christine,” he said seriously, a pained expression reinforcing his words, “I wanted nothing more than to kill him just now. But what would that lead to? He didn’t cut you, did he?”

  Christine felt her cheek with a shaking hand. Strangely, she felt nothing but sweaty, unbroken skin. “N-no. But he was going to!”

  He was silent for a moment, apparently searching for a reason that she would accept. “If I kill him, he will be immortalized in the Parisian newspapers as a martyr, a victim of the Opera Ghost. If he stands trial for attempted assault, it is he whom the world will despise for his crimes.”