Angel Hands (11 page)

"It was her decision, and your brother supports it."

"Because he fears for her sanity! She is hearing that damned Opera Ghost's voice again, and he's afraid that if he didn't allow her to sing, she'd go mad from it. You know her mental balance was not always the best."

"It has nothing to do with me, monsieur." That was the truth, ironically.

"I don't believe you."

"Believe what you will, but I beg you not to importune me further on this matter."

"So you are Mireille Dubienne," the blonde suddenly piped up. "You're nothing like I thought you'd be."

Philippe paused in his glowering to glance at the woman. "Mireille, allow me to introduce my fiancée, Mademoiselle Celestine-Rose de Beaufort-Belmont, daughter of the Marquis of Chamoix."

Mireille nodded in stunned silence, not trusting herself to speak.

"My, but she is plain, Philippe! Whatever could have possessed you?" Celestine-Rose tittered.

"I was young," he replied gruffly, eyeing Mireille venomously.

"Neither of you are so young anymore!" the girl giggled.

"Listen, Mireille. Kristin has had her little debut. I want you to get her off the stage!"

She shrugged, anger bubbling up in her and carrying her over the waves of humiliation. "Believe me, monsieur, I would like nothing better, but it is not up to me."

"Then who is it up to?"

"Madame la vicomtesse and her husband."

"You little..." he spat.

"Little what, Philippe?" Mireille spat back. "Little...what? What did you make me? Hmmm?"

"This is not over."

"Oh, but it is, monsieur. Very much over.
Bon soir
." She swept away from them, head carried high, disdain filling every fiber of her being. Tears would come later.

The interlude had left her unequal to dealing with other guests, and she simply hid behind the familiar potted plant she always used, clutching her empty champagne glass.

"That color is terrible on you."

She was disgusted with herself at the wave of relief she felt at hearing that voice again. Somehow, her spirit felt better and stronger at the presence of her former antagonist.

"Go away."

"You've told me that before."

"I meant it before."

He chuckled, a warm rolling sound that filled her and thrilled her. Damn him!

"And what did the good comte have to say?"

"Guess."

"I don't mean about Kristin. Guessing that is child's play. What I want to know is what he said to make you so very upset."

"I look upset?"

"Only to the one who knows you best."

She couldn't think of a suitable retort, and so remained silent, wanting to force him to speak more, to make the next move in their infernal chess game.

"You wish me to guess? Very well. You and he had some kind of relationship many years ago, and he broke it off—or perhaps you broke it off. It ended badly. The wounds go deep in your soul and have never healed."

Impossible to answer him. Impossible to admit it. Impossible to speak without choking on tears.

"What are your intentions for Madame la vicomtesse now that she has debuted on my stage?"

"On my stage."

"Not this again."

"She will continue to perform for the run of the opera. After that, we shall see."

"Are you scheming to get her back?"

His silence indicated that perhaps she had induced an equal amount of impossibility in replying for him.

"Check," she added lightly, thinking of their chess game.

"Hardly."

She was about to reply when a bevy of shouts roused her attention, and she looked over to the crowd that had gathered around her father just in time to see him collapse.

"Papa!" she cried and ran over to him, all else forgotten.

It was too late.

15. Of One Suitor Too Many

Dull. Dull as dust, dull as darkness, dull as death. Bleak and blank and utterly uninterested in most everything.

In some ways, the numbness was a mercy, given everything that happened starting precisely one minute after her father’s fatal collapse at the debut of
Don Juan
. There were curious crowds at the gala, gawking at the living tragedy playing out before them. There were no crowds at her father’s lonely funeral, where she had rallied enough of her old self to insist on flouting convention and attended the graveside ceremony. There were the avaricious crowds that came two days later, a muster of vultures bearing debt notices and defaulted contracts.

So many things came and went along with the people. Kindly visitors brought food, and creditors carried away furniture. Her father’s distant cousin arrived, all pomade and dandified cravats, and lawyers sold the flat that was her home. She came to a small room in her cousin’s widowed aunt’s flat over-filled with cushions and anti-macassars, and ownership of the Opéra de Paris went in its entirety to Carcasonne.

For all that her father had trusted her with his affairs, he had hidden from her numerous risky business speculations. Looking over the papers, she saw that they were more akin to bets than business, and her father’s repeated investing in them resembled the compulsions of an obsessive gambler. Some ventures had prospered early on, but a far greater number had failed. He had pledged uncertain returns of risky debts against future returns of new debts. The Opéra de Paris had been the only item in his portfolio turning a regular profit, but even that had only begun to pay off the initial investment and expenses.

None of it really mattered in the end, though. Nothing could compare to the bleak fact that her Papa was gone. The one man in her life who had never betrayed her and her constant champion was gone, without even a chance to say goodbye.

Could she ever forget the horrific sight of her father's unseeing eyes staring at the glaring chandelier of the foyer? The unsightly sagging of his half-open mouth and the uncomfortable splaying of his limbs?

The endless parade of mourners, distant family, social calls, condolence bouquets, and thank you notes had worn Mireille down to nothing but the most fundamental elements of survival. Eat for sustenance. Sleep when the body collapses. Smile sweetly yet sadly when the occasion demands.

The opera seemed a dream, a little game for a child to play under the vigilance of an indulgent parent. Now that the parent moldered in an expensive mahogany casket below the damp earth in Père Lachaise, there seemed little point in playing such a game. There was nothing more to prove, and even if there were, there was no way for her to prove it. She sometimes wondered if she had tried so hard to be a man in a man's world to give her father the son he never had. Yet, he had seemed content with his daughter. Then what had she been doing? To build an illusion of impregnability after Philippe had abandoned her? To salvage a dignity that was already destroyed after he repudiated their engagement?

Even the Opera Ghost now seemed just an idle pastime. Nothing mattered. No one mattered.

Everyone said that the pain would lessen, that time would heal her. What did they know, with their lips sticky with coffee and sugar, and their hearts full of deceitful pity?

Days passed into weeks. Mireille sat by the window or in the chair by the low-burning fire, listlessly staring at the air as if her papa could miraculously materialize from it.

"Mireille?" Raymond's voice was soft and gentle, just as it had been from the moment of the tragedy.

"Raymond, how are you?" Her voice sounded flat to her, but flat was how she felt.

"I'd be better if I saw some color in your cheeks. Why don't you come outside with me? Just for a short turn about the block?"

"If you wish." Acquiescing was less effort than protesting. She let him even tenderly wrap her shawl around her shoulders and perch the black hat on her head.

It was grey and heavy outside, the air weighing down on the buildings of Paris as if the roofs supported the sky. Mireille let Raymond slip her arm through his, and walked docilely by his side.

"Performances have resumed, per the orders of Carcasonne," he remarked.

"That's good."

“Solange has replaced Madame la vicomtesse, who withdrew from the production in a crisis of nerves, declaring she will never again sing in public.”

“That was to be expected.”

"Everybody misses you, Mireille. Will you come back?"

"I cannot."

"Cannot or will not, my dear?"

"Cannot. Do you truly think Carcasonne would allow me the same scope and authority as my papa did? It was only by his good grace that I had any voice in the management at all."

"But, we will all support you."

"You will be out of work in a heartbeat. Carcasonne is owner now. He is the manager of the theater. You must accept that."

It was better to leave unsaid that the only way Carcasonne would allow her back into the theater was at the price of her skirts.

Raymond smiled sadly and stopped to take her in his arms.

"You were worlds better than he could ever be," he said. "Let me be ruled by a woman, so long as you are the woman!"

His words roused a faint chuckle from her, and she did not struggle in his embrace. It was...real. It was anchored to reality and perhaps to a future—even if she couldn't see it fully. He was warm and gentle and good. He had come every day since her father's death. Every day. Without fail.

And she was grateful to him, but still, something inside her warned her to proceed with caution into such sentimental forays.

"Tell me," she said, bringing the conversation back to a less intimate place. “Have any more mishaps or anything…untoward happened at the theater?”

Raymond studied her keenly before he said, "No, not a single incident of...anything has occurred. It has been...peaceful at the theater."

Mireille forced a laugh. "Then you should reprimand Pierre Buprès for not doing his job!" she replied.

"He quit."

"What?"

"He gave his notice the day after the...the debut."

"But, Pierre was...where would he go?"

"I don’t know."

Mireille chewed her lip. Something stirred in her heart but died out before it had a chance. "That is too bad," is all that would come out.

"Won't you come back?"

"I can't."

He sighed and pulled her in tighter to his embrace, where she went uncomplainingly. "As long as I can still see you, I can't bemoan the news too, but it will be grievous news to the others. They miss you."

"And to think I believed they could hardly stand me."

"You pushed them to be their best for the sake of being the best. Carcasonne only pushes them for the sake of the box office."

"I cared about the box office, too!"

Raymond laughed as raindrops began to fall with round plops on their faces. The rain felt cool and new on her skin, and she turned her face up to it. Raymond's lips found her upturned ones, and she didn't object. She didn't encourage him, either.

"You are not alone, my dearest," he whispered against her lips. "I am here for you, and I wish to always be here for you. Don't answer me now, but just know that it is my dearest wish to make you my wife."

"Raymond!"

"Shhh. It is too soon to speak further, and I know it."

The hustle and bustle of the streets with their omnibuses and carriages faded into a buzzing in the background as Mireille tried to swallow this new development. Wordlessly, she allowed Raymond to bring her back to the flat and remove her hat and shawl. She watched as he stoked the fire in the hearth and poured her a small glass of red wine.

"I must get back now," he said, tenderly kissing her on the cheek. "I will come again tomorrow."

She smiled, trying to put real feeling into it, for she was grateful for kind, kind Raymond.

"I will see you then," she said softly.

After he had left, she sat for a long while, staring out the window at the rainy street below. It felt as though a species of fog was lifting slowly from her brain, and she found herself thinking quite clearly and coolly about her present situation and her prospects.

Orphaned and under the guardianship of her cousin Guillaume Dubienne, a man who spent more on his toilette than she spent on a week's operation of the opera house, she was penniless and powerless in the eyes of the world.

The will had provided a small stipend to be paid out of the income from the interest on the investments of the inheritance money. But she had her suspicions that if Guillaume’s spending habits continued to spiral, that allowance might quietly disappear.

She could no longer work at the Opéra de Paris. Carcasonne had made that clear. There were pitifully few other options for female employment suitable to her genteel yet impoverished status. She was a terrible seamstress, too grumpy to sell hats, too allergic to run a flower shop, and too short-tempered to be a governess or ladies' companion. Even if she had wanted to go with the far more profitable, though immoral, route of being a courtesan, she was too old and too plain.

Marriage truly was her only escape. She knew that Guillaume would rejoice at the chance to offload her and end her allowance, so there would be little trouble there. Carcasonne could not interfere. Raymond was a good man, and he would provide a modest but comfortable home for them. And she was fond of him. Perhaps, in time, fondness would grow into something more.

She smiled ruefully. Well, it was as good a plan as any, and certainly the best of her choices right now.

She had decided. She would marry Raymond once the rest of her requisite mourning period had passed, securing her future, just as her father had hoped she would do.

The thought of her Opera Ghost flitted through her mind with a queer pang of regret that she never got to finish the battle with him. He had been a worthy opponent. She laughed a little at the thought now that he was Carcasonne's problem.

Yes, she would marry Raymond Lefebre, and all would be well.

***