Chapter Four
After spending the entire evening
with Christine, Meg, and Raoul, Jenny was tired and, for the first time since
arriving, worried about her lack of lodgings for the night. Although the mood of the evening had been
badly shaken by that previous incident, Raoul and Meg had done their best to
cheer Christine and Jenny up.
Surprisingly, they did very well in that respect and Jenny soon forgot
all about the mysterious man in the shadows.
Raoul had fed the girls well despite their half-hearted protests against
his generosity. Escargot, the
champagne, rich pastries; Jenny had never tasted such delicacies before! She was accustomed to fruits and vegetables
from the market... bread and pies from the local bakery... or pork and beef
from the friendly butcher, certainly not éclairs, filet mignon, or
lobster! Raoul insisted that she try
anything that struck her fancy and recommended several of the most expensive
dishes on the menu! Christine was a
certainly lucky woman if this young aristocrat was serious about defying his
oppressive brother and marrying her.
As was her habit, she mentally
catalogued her new friends' internal and external virtues. Both of them were good-looking, with
blonde hair and bright blue eyes.
Christine was a beautiful girl, the kind that drew men like sweet
flowers attract bees. Honey-blonde
curls spiraled down her back, reaching almost to her hips and her eyes were
large, the color of a spring sky. She
also possessed an innocence and naiveté that made men want to protect her. Thankfully, she was just as beautiful on the
inside, kind-hearted and gentle as a sparrow, if somewhat immature at times.
Raoul was a proper young man with
none of the rudeness or holier-than-thou attitude usually associated with those
of privileged and aristocratic blood.
He was easy-going and honest, quick to smile and laugh, eager to please
his friends, and one of the sweetest men Jenny had ever met. On top of that, it was easy to see that this
young god (as Meg often referred to him when he was out of hearing range) was
madly in love with Christine. Jennifer
was convinced that Raoul would protect Christine with everything he had.
Christine and Raoul did make a
lovely couple, Jenny begrudgingly admitted to herself with a pang of
heartache. The European model marriage;
he was the compassionate and doting husband and she was the loving and dutiful
wife.
Meg was just as pretty as Christine,
with a decidedly Irish look to her. She
had long, sleek, burnished red hair that absolutely captivated most men and
startling blue-green eyes. Her skin was
very pale and be-speckled with light-brown freckles that were just enough to be
endearing rather than overpowering. She
was exuberant and cheerful, always ready to make a joke or tell a story based
on the theater gossip, but she wasn't malicious at all. She was far too sweet to ever be considered
a threat to one's reputation.
Jenny sighed as they returned Meg to
her quarters, watching Christine and Raoul cuddle chastely; no man would ever
love her the way Raoul did Christine; no man would chase after her like many
did Meg. To put it kindly, she was
certainly not the modern world's most attractive woman. Jenny was of medium height, with mousy-brown
hair that couldn't seem to decide whether to curl or lie straight and green
eyes that viewed the world from behind those accursed, wire-framed
spectacles. And whereas Christine and
Meg were slim and graceful from dancing, Jenny was hourglass-shaped with an
(overly) generous bust and posterior.
She was fashionably pale (though not for fashion's sake!) but her skin
still bore the occasional spots of adolescence. She'd never had a suitor in her life and attributed that fact to
her lack of beauty and a dowry.
Her fine education only served to
alienate her further. A wife was
expected only to know how to cook, sew, and care for children; these skills
Jennifer naturally had, but she also knew more. She adored music, art, and science; she could speak, read, and
write in fluent English, Latin, French, and Italian; she could cipher with the
best of accountants and knew more about architecture and history than the
average scholar. However, her
intelligence was only another undesirable trait to add to the long list. No man wanted a plain girl with culture and
an education, but no money; a woman who might outshine him in the world. Men wanted beautiful girls with heads of
straw and no opinions of their own, who agreed with whatever they said like a
blasted parakeet.
Even the few men Jenny had attempted
to get to know had snubbed her attentions.
Michael, a boy in her church choir she'd grown fond of at the age of
fifteen, had ignored her for the most part, despite her endeavors to gain his
favorable attention. He was a year
older than her and quite handsome, with straight brown hair and blue eyes that
made her knees weak; best of all, he was the most talented singer she'd ever
heard, with hopes of traveling to New York and forming an American opera
company of his own. She'd foolishly
written him a "secret admirer" note proclaiming her affections for
him and he'd harshly passed it around to every young choir member, each reading
her heart-felt words and laughing. It
was no mystery to any of them who had written it, for Jenny had made no secret
of her young love for Michael.
She could remember vividly the long
walk home after rehearsal; walking on the dirt road alone and kicking the
pebbles, wishing she hadn't written the stupid letter in the first place. She'd heard Michael's voice call her name
from down the road and she'd turned with a smile, fleetingly believing that he
was going to return some of the sweet words she'd offered. Why else would he follow her out this way?
Nice fairy tale. He'd thrown the torn remnants of the letter
into her face and slapped her to the ground, demanding to know why on earth she
thought that she was good enough for him.
No man would ever want a dirty, poor, ugly girl like her, no way, no
shape. He'd called her a whore, a slut,
an idiot, a fat, ugly cow...
"Jenny?"
"Hmmm?" she awoke from her
disturbing reveries with a start.
"Where are you staying?"
Christine repeated her question.
"Umm... nowhere. I haven't any lodgings or money. I was just going to hole up somewhere."
Jenny sighed uncomfortably.
"Oh, no you don't; that's
dangerous. It's freezing and there are
plenty of robbers and murderers out there." Christine shook her head
emphatically. "Why don't you stay with me?"
"I wouldn't want to
impose." Jenny protested half-heartedly.
"You're not imposing at
all. Raoul, take us both back to the
Opera, would you?" Christine
insisted.
In no time, Christine was leading
Jenny up from the grande escalier again, this time taking her to the
hundreds of dressing rooms. The light
of Christine's candle barely cut through the strangely thick darkness.
"You live here at the
Opera?" Jenny asked quietly, trying not to pant after climbing up all of
those stairs.
"Yes. I have a voice lesson rather early in the morning, so it makes
more sense for me to just stay here.
Besides, the prices of apartments are too expensive for me to cover on
my current salary." she explained.
"Ah... who is this early-rising
teacher?"
"Umm... I don't know."
"Pardon me?"
"Well, I've never seen
him. He's extraordinarily secretive and
teaches me from behind my mirror. He
won't even tell me his name or agree to show himself to me." she confessed
uneasily, leading Jenny into an empty dressing room. "Here you are... I'll be right next door if you need
anything, room thirteen." she said, lighting another candle for Jenny's
use. "Sleep well, I'm sure you'll
find that you'll be in the chorus tomorrow."
"I hope so. Goodnight... and thank-you." Jenny said
gratefully, removing her cream-colored shawl and placing it over the back of
the dressing-table chair.
"Goodnight." Christine
whispered, slipping out of the room.
Exhausted physically from her long
journey and the late night, Jenny quickly undressed down to her shift of plain
ivory cotton and laid down on the small cot, drawing the blanket up over
herself and merely thinking about all that had transpired that day. Inevitably, her thoughts turned back to the
ghost story that Meg had related to her and to that tragic cry everyone had
heard during dinner. Meg swore up,
down, and all around that it had been the ghost making that awful wailing. Jenny was not superstitious or religious in
the least; she had seen and learned far too much to believe in ghosts,
vampires, or werewolves. But the fact
remained that someone had to be sending the management those threatening notes,
"earning" 20,000 francs a month, and killing harmless old
scene-shifters. That someone had to
know the Opera inside-out and upside-down, perhaps work there. The whole concept of a crazed murderer in
the immediate area froze her blood.
However, that didn't stop her from falling fast asleep, blissfully
unaware of a pair of ghostly blue eyes watching her curiously.
Wearing a long cloak of luxurious,
black velvet and a mask of white leather which covered most of his face, the
Phantom of the Opera himself observed the young foreigner from behind the
full-length mirror. He could remember
her apparent worry for his welfare when she'd found him outside of the
restaurant, the anxious light in her eyes that had made him temporarily forget
that he was supposed to be hiding from all sight. He'd snarled at her, hoping to send her running from his temper,
but she'd stayed, trying to soothe him, unconcerned that she didn't know him
from Adam. If Christine hadn't
distracted her, giving him time to flee himself, he might have been forced to
either become physically violent or to let her tend to him. Either choice was out of the question.
He had accidentally missed the
auditions due to his obsessive work on his own opera and now he regretted it
furiously. This child must have sung wonderfully
for Carlotta to be making such an unheard of fuss. He'd had the unfortunate encounter of hearing the spoiled diva
screech to the managers at the top of her lungs about a Jennifer Marie Black,
with her lack of training, poor looks, and bratty impudence. Judging that this girl was the only person
with an American accent he'd yet encountered, she had to be this "cheeky
bit of filth from across the ocean" that had so upset Carlotta.
He liked her already. Anyone who had the courage to stare Carlotta
in the face and tell her in not-so-polite terms to shut her constantly flapping
mouth was at the top of his woefully short list. In addition, anyone who had the courage to take on a distraught
stranger in the dark, Parisian streets and try to help earned his respect by
default. Such compassionate individuals
were sorely needed in this world.
However, Carlotta was right on a few
points, the child was dirty and poorly dressed... and certainly wasn't much to
look at in any case. Not that he was
one to complain... Christine would
undoubtedly show her where to bathe in the morning, as for clean clothes...
well, perhaps he could come up with something for her. It was the least he could do to repay her
kindness to him.
If he was going to do anything, he'd
better do it immediately, he reasoned.
Ever since following Christine and this young woman to the restaurant,
things had been going terribly wrong.
First, nearly being robbed along the way by a small band of foolhardy
ruffians (whom he'd quickly dispatched), then arriving just in time to hear
that wretched vicomte propose marriage to his one love! Shocked and hurt beyond his natural stealth,
he'd fled from the place clumsily, knocking over several inattentive waiters in
the process. Once outside, he'd run
like the devil was after him, unable to restrain a single scream of suffering
from escaping his lips. Considering the
late hour, he probably had roused half of Paris from their beds... but he
didn't really care.
Christine had agreed to marry her vicomte
and he was powerless to stop it; the girl didn't even know of his
feelings. And even if she did, she
certainly wouldn't choose a deformed catacomb-dweller over a titled aristocrat!
he reminded himself bitterly as he made his way down to his lair under the
Opera, seeking both refuge and a set of clothes for his new little muse. With any luck, he could continue Christine's
voice lessons the next morning as if nothing had happened. Perhaps he could fool himself into believing
that he didn't care...
Not bloody likely...
****
Jenny awoke early the next morning
with the telltale confusion of not knowing where she was. After a split second of abject terror, she
remembered the past day's events and playfully jumped out of bed, happy to have
a night's sleep with no nightmares to plague her. It was almost as if some benevolent angel had been hovering over
her all night, keeping her deepest fears at bay. Maybe whoever had been watching them in the foyer yesterday was
her guardian angel, she smiled foolishly over the idea. It was the first time in months that she'd
felt looked after, however strangely.
She could hear Christine in the next
room singing and decided to go visit, perhaps meet her mysterious teacher. Nonetheless, her perceptive eyes caught a splash
of cobalt blue on the mud-colored dressing table. Curious by nature, she took a closer look. It was a finely made blouse of cotton, very
soft and serviceable, underneath was an ankle-length skirt of a darker shade of
blue, a pair of cream-colored silk stockings, and a pair of black, button-up
boots of fine leather. On top of the
whole pile was a note written in red ink on expensive, black-edged paper.
Dear Mademoiselle Black,
I don't mean to be presumptuous, but
I've taken the liberty of providing you with appropriate clothing. You'll feel better about yourself and will
therefore make a better impression on your first day of work, here in my Opera
House.
Your
obedient servant,
O.G.
Post-Script
- Brava!
There was no mistaking who the note was for, both her
first and last name were written on the front in the same elegant hand-writing
and fancy red ink. But who on earth was
O.G.? And why would he or she bother
with her? Christine will know,
she reasoned, hastily washing from a basin of cool water before slipping into
the lovely clothes. They fit
perfectly... it was downright uncanny.
After a quick knock to signal her
arrival and a sung "entrez-vous!" from Christine, Jenny
entered the dressing room. She paused
and looked about in confusion when she found that Christine was by herself in
the room. Christine was singing scales
in time with a metronome from somewhere and Jenny shrugged, making herself
comfortable in a chair and smoothing her new skirt primly.
"Very good." said a man's
voice, instantly catching Jenny's attention.
Such a voice! It was deep,
resonant, and positively the most beautiful voice she'd ever heard outside of
her dreams! It was the kind of voice
that she immediately billed to the sensual heroes of her beloved romance
stories, soft and capable of turning her brain to mush with the right
words. It didn't occur to Jenny to
wonder where the owner of this voice was hiding, or why he was hiding. Her only question... who was this man who
spoke in tones of forbidden black velvet?
"Thank you, Maestro. May I take a short rest?" Christine
asked while Jenny shook her mind free of such dangerous thoughts.
"Yes, of course. After you introduce me to your friend, that
is." the voice said indulgently.
"Maestro, this is Jennifer
Marie Black from America." Christine indicated Jenny.
"At your service, monsieur."
Jenny smiled, curtseying in the direction she thought the voice was coming
from. "And you would be...?"
"Maestro. That is as specific as I intend to get. And it's an honor, mademoiselle."
the voice continued with civility, although the coolness did nothing to hinder
its great beauty.
"Same here, Maestro." she
let his defensive comment slide, eager to ask Christine about the note. "Christine, I need to talk to you."
"What is it?" Christine
asked. "And where did you get
those clothes?"
"That's what I need to talk to
you about; look at this letter I found." Jenny handed her friend the
immediate evidence.
"O.G." Christine repeated
after skimming through the short note.
"Oh, my..."
"What? What?" Jenny demanded.
"O.G. stands for Opera Ghost,
the Phantom of the Opera." Christine explained.
"You mean the... was in the...
with me... while I slept?" Jenny whispered disjointedly in horror at the
thought of a depraved murderer in her room.
"So it would appear. But I wouldn't worry; he seems to have taken
a liking to you." Christine
shrugged so that Jenny felt the irrational impulse to slap her.
"Don't worry? Don't worry? A supposed murderer was in my room last
night and could've done God-knows-what to me and you tell me not to worry?"
"Please, calm down, Jenny...
Meg and I aren't positive that the Phantom has ever killed anyone; the police did
declare it a suicide. Besides, the
Phantom isn't always malevolent; he promoted Meg to leader-of-the-row and
engineered my success in replacing Carlotta in Faust that one
time." Christine calmed the younger girl down. "And judging by his implications, I'd say he demanded that
the management hire you."
"Do you really think so?"
Jenny asked eagerly, all fear vanishing.
"Yes, I do. The list is probably hung by now, shall we
go check it while I'm on break?" Christine smiled, raising her eyebrows at
Jenny in question.
"Yes, yes, yes!" Jenny all
but dragged Christine out of the room.
Sure enough, when they got to the
cast list, Jennifer was on it. Not only
did she have a job, but she was Christine's understudy for Siebel. Consequently, if neither Carlotta nor
Christine appeared, she would play Marguerite in Faust!
"Please, promise me that you
won't elope with Raoul on Carlotta's night off." Jenny half-jokingly
pleaded with Christine as they made their way back to her dressing room.
"I won't, promise."
Christine laughed. "Let's go tell
Maestro of your great achievement."
"Well done, mademoiselle."
was his concise reply to the news.
"Are you sure that you've never had any training?"
"Absolutely, monsieur."
"Interesting... I wonder if you
would grant me a request?"
"Yes, monsieur?"
Jenny prompted hesitantly; wondering what was he up to.
"Would you do me the honor of
singing for me privately?"
"Oh no! I assure you, my voice
is very plain next to Christine's!" she protested adamantly.
"I'll sound like a cat being tortured by comparison."
"Let me be the judge of that, mademoiselle."
he said softly, but with a hint of unbreakable command in his tone.
"Well... all right, but don't
say I didn't warn you." Jenny conceded, covering up her uneasiness with
self-detrimental humor.
"I'll leave you two
alone." Christine said. "Good
luck." she added quietly to Jenny in a tone that suggested she needed all
of the luck she could possibly get.
"Oh, that's encouraging."
Jenny mumbled under her breath.
"Any time you're ready, mademoiselle."
Maestro said impatiently.
With that to spur her on, Jenny sang
an old song she knew well; the song her mother had sung to her in the
cradle. Her own grandfather had written
the music and used a well-known poem for the lyrics, William Blake's Little
Lamb.
Little lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?
Gave thee clothing of delight
Softest clothing wooly bright
Gave thee such a tender voice
Making all the vales rejoice?
Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?
Little Lamb I'll tell thee,
Little Lamb, I'll tell thee;
He is called by thy name,
For he calls Himself a Lamb
He is meek and He is mild;
He became a little child.
I a child and thou a lamb,
We are called by his name.
Little Lamb, God bless thee.
Little Lamb, God bless thee.
She trembled on the last few notes;
this song meant so much to her that she hadn't sung it since her parents' death
ten years' prior; almost to the point of forgetting it entirely. Somehow, she was ashamed and selfish with it
all at once. It was a lullaby for a
small child after all, amended to suit her.
It was childish... but still, it was hers only. For some insane reason, intuition told her
that Maestro would appreciate the song almost as much as she did. She was not disappointed.
"Mademoiselle... I-"
he began, evidently shaken; did she detect a thickness in his usually clear,
refined voice, like that caused by tears?
"A beautiful piece..." he
said at last, after composing himself.
"With an equally beautiful voice performing it."
Jenny looked up at the mirror from
her fixed stare on the table. "You
really mean that, Maestro? I did
well?"
"I always mean what I say, mademoiselle. A few training sessions with me and both you
and Christine will rival all of the opera companies in the world." he assured
her.
"I appreciate the offer,
Maestro, but I have no money to pay you with." Jenny sighed longingly;
Lord it was a curse to never be able to afford the things she needed and wanted
most.
"Have I asked for a sou?"
he replied. "I do not teach for
money, mademoiselle. I teach
only when it... interests me to do so."
"Surely you require some form
of payment, Maestro." Jenny slid closer to the mirror unconsciously,
wishing for all the world that she could see this man with the warm, sensual
voice. Saints alive, with such a voice,
he must be able to command anything from anyone. Women by the score must be vying for his attention as if their
lives were at stake.
"What, exactly, is that
supposed to mean?" he demanded venomously. "I am certainly not in the habit of accepting the favors
of depraved chorus girls in return for my expertise!"
Jenny drew away from the mirror with
a mental slap for where her thoughts had been going. She managed to appear shocked and was becomingly enraged at his
insinuations.
"That is not what I
meant, you... you... imperialistic dictator!" she yelled, quickly
wishing her rash words back. Oh
dear... her grandmother had always said that her mouth would get her into
trouble, she thought, ineffectually covering her mouth with her hand.
A long silence followed her insult
and Jenny feared that maybe he'd left in a rage. But suddenly laughter filled the tense air, full and warm.
"Imperialistic dictator?"
he repeated around his laughing.
"You, ma chere, are no damsel in distress, are you?"
"Not this time." she
joined him in laughing, relieved that he no longer seemed angry with her.
"I wouldn't have figured that
you would even know the meaning of those words, let alone apply them, most
aptly, to me." he chuckled.
"Oh, you'd be surprised,
Maestro."