Phantom (62 page)

I stared at him with wary disbelief. This man who had tried to kill me was now speaking to me as thought he were my father… or my doctor! Perhaps I was hallucinating after all…

"I would like you to marry her as soon as possible," he said slowly. "I assume you will be perfectly agreeable to that?"

I nodded at him, utterly stupefied by this turn of the conversation.

"Good. Now, I am going to ask you a very impertinent question and I would appreciate a very honest answer in return. Will you have sufficient income to keep her if your family should cut you off? Now, don't be stiff necked and proud, boy! You're only twenty, you've not entered your majority yet, and I would prefer to give you whatever you need rather than see my child marry a pauperized aristocrat."

I assured him my finances were in an entirely satisfactory condition, convinced now that I was merely taking part in some bizarre dream. Any minute now I was going to wake up limp with relief and swear never to take cheese for supper again!

He returned to Christine and made a curt gesture for me to accompany him. From the corner of my eye I became aware of the Persian standing in the doorway of the torture chamber, watching us without comment.

Erik took hold of Christine's hand, looking down for a moment at her small fingers entwined by his long, skeletal bones. She opened her mouth as though to speak, but he placed a finger on her lips to silence her.

"Hush, my dear, there's nothing more to say now. It has all been arranged. I won't be able to give you away in the church, of course, so I'd like do it now…"

As he joined her hand with mine, I became uncomfortably aware that tears were coursing unheeded down his sunken cheeks.

"I never go to weddings, you see," he murmured dimly. "People keep asking me, but I always say no, weddings make me cry, it's better not to go. I like to keep the invitations, though—I have a whole drawerful of invitations— weddings, christenings, funerals. A whole drawerful—can you believe that, young man?"

I nodded hastily. I would have agreed with him that black was white that night, if he had required it of me— anything,
anything
that would permit me to get her safely away from this temple of doom.

He fell silent for a moment, wiping away the tears which were falling steadily onto our joined hands… no longer his alone, I noted, for Christine, too, was now weeping silently.

"I know it's not good manners to ask, but really I should like to have your invitation very badly… for my collection, you know. Handwritten and hand delivered… One can't trust to the post, you see… not down here. So, will you do that for me, young man… will you swear to bring her back the day before the wedding and deliver that invitation to me? I promise that I shan't keep you long… but I believe, on such a day, it would be quite permissible to kiss the bride… would it not?"

"Yes," I said faintly. The man was mad and dangerous and must be humored, yet it was not easy to remain unmoved in the face of such barely controlled grief. "Yes… I will bring her back… the day before. Whatever you wish."

I think he smiled—it was difficult to be sure with such severely deformed lips.

"You will find the lantern in the boat," he continued quietly. "Christine knows the way to the other side."

He stood back and gestured for me to take her. Christine made a movement toward him, but I caught her arm and held her in a furious grip as Erik turned his back on us and began to walk unsteadily toward the Persian.

"My dear friend," he said with a sudden, unmistakable affection that astonished me, "I very much hope you'll do me the honor of taking tea in the drawing room before you leave."

The Persian's reply was too soft for me to hear, but it appeared to be assent, for after a moment the two men went through into another room together and shut the door.

Christine stared at the closed door with disbelief, but this time, when I tugged at her arm, she came with me without any further resistance.

I tried not to notice that she was still crying.

For the next three weeks I was very busy, chasing around Paris making arrangements for a hasty marriage and a passage to England with as much secrecy as I could contrive. I knew it would be quite impossible for us to remain in France. My marriage would be considered a terrible mesalliance, frowned upon by friends and family alike and, with so many doors shut against us, it would be infinitely preferable to go where we were not known. Besides, I could not get out of my mind the idea that it would be as well to put as much distance as possible between Christine and the Opera House, and to me the English Channel seemed the ultimate barrier.

She expressed no comment when I suggested that we should go to England for a while, she showed neither pleasure nor interest in my arrangements. I tried to be patient. She had been through a terrible ordeal and she was still in a state of shock; I could hardly expect her to say, "Thank God that's all over!" and behave as though nothing had happened.

But as the days passed, she appeared to grow more agitated and distressed. The shadows under her eyes became so dark that they assumed the appearance of black bruises, and she took to wearing a hat with a little veil whenever we went out… which admittedly wasn't often. Left to herself she was inclined to huddle in front of the fire, staring at the flickering coals and moving the beads of her rosary restlessly through her fingers.

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women…

That seemed to be as far as she could ever get. Her maid told me she repeated those two lines over and over again, and hearing that, a little snake of fear began to twist and writhe at the back of my mind.

The day before the wedding I arrived with an armful of flowers to find her waiting for me, with a little gilt-edged card in one hand. On the table stood a huge brass key and a small, curiously shaped metal object which I could not place.

"It's time for us to go back," she said.

I looked at the invitation, neatly written in her beautiful copperplate hand, and something inside me snapped. In that moment I ceased to be the high-born hero of our little melodrama, the perfect gentleman and the adoring lover— all those things which had made me into a weak, gullible young man hopelessly manipulated by infatuation. Giving way to the anger and fear that had been festering inside me for many weeks, I caught her by the shoulders and shook her savagely.

"If you think for one moment that 1 will take you back there, you must be out of your mind!"

"But you promised." She gasped. "You promised him!"

"Of course I promised. I'd have promised to cut off my leg to get you out of his hands. The man is
insane
, Christine, utterly deranged… you must be quite mad yourself to think I ever intended to keep that promise!"

She swayed back from me and sank into the chair beside the fire.

"If you won't take me," she said unsteadily, "I shall go by myself."

Leaning forward, I snatched the invitation from her trembling hand and tore it into half-a-dozen pieces.

"If you go back to him you won't be needing to take this with you!" 1 said furiously. "If you go back now there won't
be
any wedding… Do you understand what I'm saying, Christine?"

She nodded dumbly, staring down at the scraps of white card which had scattered into the tiled grate.

Without another word I slammed out of the building and got into the carriage that waited outside. I waited five minutes, hoping desperately that she would run after me and beg me to stay; but she did not come out, and when I looked up I could see no sign of her at the window.

Reaching home, I shocked my valet by demanding a decanter of brandy in my room, and once immured there in privacy, I proceeded to get very quickly and ingloriously drunk. I wasn't accustomed to hard drinking of spirits; I suppose in many ways I was still remarkably naive and innocent… twenty years old and still a virgin! But I'd never wanted anyone except Christine and I couldn't believe that I would ever want anyone else. At some point during the evening I have a vague memory of smashing my glass in the hearth in an excess of outraged self-pity. But the following morning, waking with a pounding headache and a weary resignation, I knew I had to take her back. I would take her back this one last time and then perhaps it would truly be over and we could begin to live our own life together.

When I arrived at her apartment, that half-witted girl of hers informed me that mademoiselle had gone out the previous evening and not yet returned.

No message had been left for me.

"Monsieur," said the little maid timidly, "I am very much afraid for mademoiselle… She is not herself these days."

"I know," I said absently, turning away, with my hat in my hand. "I must have been crazy to leave her alone in that state."

"Do you perhaps know where she can have gone, monsieur?"

I stared at the pedestrians milling carelessly along the streets, the sight of Paris going cheerful and unconcerned about its business.

"Yes," I said, with grim resignation, "I know where she is."

"A sledgehammer?" gasped my driver in astonishment. "Monsieur, forgive me… did you say a sledgehammer?"

"I did."

Sitting back in my carriage I glared at the man, and with evident good sense he decided not to pursue the issue any further. It took him almost two hours, but at length he presented me with my odd request and deposited me, in accordance with my instructions, outside the Opera. I told him to wait till I returned; he had been with my family for many years and I trusted both his loyalty and his discretion.

It was shortly after midday and the
grand escalier
was deserted, but I was such a well-known patron that no one would have thought of questioning my presence on the premises, even had they seen me. I carried my coat over my arm and the sledgehammer was carefully hidden beneath.

I knew only one means of entry to Erik's house and made my way unerringly, along the route that the Persian had shown me, to the stone in the third cellar. Knowing that I would find myself once more in the torture chamber, I came armed to smash my way through the toughened glass structure, only to find that my precaution had been quite unnecessary. The mirrored room was in darkness, the door stood open, and I walked into the chamber beyond without the slightest inconvenience.

I was appalled by the scene of devastation which met my eyes. The room had been wrecked almost beyond all recognition; the black tapestries torn down and cut to shreds, the magnificent pipe organ ripped from the wall and smashed to pieces, the dark red carpet littered with shredded sheets of a musical score. All he valued, everything he must have held dear in those years of solitude, had been mutilated and destroyed in some insane ritual of grief.

Staring at the sad remnants of his blighted existence, I knew a moment of shocked pity. My foot crunched on glass and, bending down, I picked up a double picture frame. In one side was a faded line portrait of an astonishingly good-looking man. The other, covered by its fractured pane of glass, I could not see clearly…

A movement in a room beyond made me stuff the picture frame automatically into my pocket, before turning to meet the inevitable challenge.

Expecting Erik, I found myself facing the Persian.

"Good morning, Monsieur de Chagny," he said calmly, in his heavily accented French, "… or perhaps, since I perceive it is now past midday, it would be more correct to say good afternoon."

Returning his chained watch to his breast pocket, he glanced around with a look of quiet despair and finally indicated a black leather couch which appeared to have survived the destruction largely intact.

"Perhaps you would care to be seated," he continued with great civility.

I didn't move. "Where are they?" I demanded. "Where has he taken her?"

Silently the Persian waved one hand in the direction of a closed door that I had not noticed before.

"In there?" As I made a movement to step past him, his hand fell heavily on my arm with all the authority of a policeman's.

"Stay here, monsieur. You have no place in that room now."

I glared at him. "I have every right—"

"You have no rights in this matter," he said steadily. "I have no desire to resort to physical force, but if I must, I will. You shall not enter that room while I am here to prevent it."

A tense silence descended between us as we stared at each other—reluctant enemies suddenly, where bare weeks ago we had been ill-assorted allies. The dark olive skin was puckered and swollen around tired eyes, the mouth drawn and thin as though it had been dragged down at the corners by the weight of untold grief. This stern, upright, elderly Oriental, who had once dragged me with him underground with desperate urgency and barely concealed anger, appeared to have been weeping steadily for many hours. He looked like a broken old man who could bear no more. I could easily have overpowered him, with one hand tied behind my back, and yet I found I had no heart to do it. I wanted to cling to the strength and support that anger afforded me, but I found my anger was already deserting me, dwindling rapidly away, leaving nothing behind in its place except emptiness and fear.

I went and sat on the couch, as I had been bidden, gazing dully at the twisted pipes of the organ and the broken black candles strewn among the upturned pewter candelabra.

"Erik did this?"

The Persian nodded gravely.

"Why?"

"He did not expect her to return. He said that he considered you to be a sensible young man and that quite understandably you would forbid it… In your place, he said, he would have done exactly the same. He wished no trace of his presence to be left on this earth after his death. The chamber beyond, which contains Mademoiselle Daae's possessions, was the only room he could not bring himself to destroy. After his last seizure he permitted me to take him there and lay him upon the bed, saying it was only fitting that he should die in the place where he had been born. He would not allow me to remove the mask."

I looked up. "Is he really dying?"