We didn’t love each other—oh, we thought we did, in that immature way of those who do not realize how young and inexperienced they truly are. But time and trial made it apparent that although we were good lovers we clearly did not have the compatibility necessary for a happy marriage. The warning signs began late in my confinement, when I was bloated and exhausted by the burden I carried and had neither the ability to elicit desire nor the strength to pursue it. Jules was away at the theatre a lot during those months, thinking (as I did) that once the child was born we could go back to being the happy, carefree couple we had been. At the time, I don’t think either of us really comprehended how much having a child would truly alter our lives; indeed, as I said before, I didn’t understand what being a mother meant until I held Meg in my arms. But while I accepted the new role which fate had cast me in, Jules seemed determined to deny that I could no longer play the free-spirited lover.
"Can’t you keep her quiet for a single hour?" he demanded one night. Though his tone was light there was a resonance of irritation behind it.
"Her teeth are coming in; what do you expect?" I yelled back, soaking a clean cloth in water and giving it to Meg to suckle on.
"I expect to come home to a few hours of peace after having to hear Laurent shriek at me in his womanish voice all day." He threw up his hands in a purely operatic gesture of frustration.
"Well, I can’t control Laurent any more than I can—where are you going?"
"Out," he muttered. "If I must have noise, I want it to be noise of a pleasanter sort."
I rocked Meg until her howling subsided into a gentler whimper, all the while brooding over the latest in a series of tense dialogues between my husband and myself. In a way, I didn’t blame him for being so peevish. The stress of rearing a child grated on me often as well, and Jules’ increasingly frequent habit of leaving the house whenever the pressure became great was a practice which I both resented and envied. Theoretically, it was his business to go out and earn a living for us while I raised the infant, but his lack of support in my endeavors became more difficult to bear by the day. And that was not the whole of it—we seemed to talk less and less; the lively conversations which had sparked our early relationship had dwindled into mere embers of cordial courtesies. Jules now spent most of his time with his fellow workmen at the theatre, while I was entering a new circle comprised of the mothers and wives living nearby. In a thousand ways the man I’d vowed to love until death was becoming a stranger to my eyes, and I could do nothing to stop it.
Worse yet…I no longer wished to.
* * * * * * * * * *
"Not tonight," I murmured one rainy fall night. "I’m too tired."
"You weren’t tired last night," Jules pointed out.
"Yes, but that was last night." Besides which, you were asleep before I even knew what was happening, I added mentally. You once said you could spend eternity enjoying my body, Jules. What happened?
A sudden wail of terror had me on my feet; within seconds I was at Meg’s side soothing away some childish nightmare. She recovered quickly from the shock, and presently she was sleeping quietly as though the dream had never occurred.
Jules was waiting for me at the door to our room, his hands folded across his solid chest in criticism. "You’re not too tired to go rushing off when she needs you though, are you?" he began bitterly. "Your energy is always sufficient to tend to her needs and wants…"
"She’s my daughter, Jules! And yours as well, if you’ve forgotten it."
"And I’m your husband—but that doesn’t count for anything anymore, does it?" he spat. "You’ve hardly paid me any heed for the past several months, everything revolves around your precious little Marguerite!"
I retreated from him in disgusted horror. "I can’t believe what I’m hearing," I whispered. "Are you implying that you’re jealous of your own daughter?"
"Can you blame me?" he demanded. "She has the whole of your attention, you spend all your time and strength on her—"
"What am I supposed to do, pretend she doesn’t exist just because you want a tumble? I’m a mother now, Jules, I have a duty—"
"You have a duty to me as well." He seized my shoulders fiercely. "And I can have the priest remind you of it if need be."
"So it’s a duty now? Well then, what’s stopping you?" I ripped open my shift to the navel, baring breasts gone limp and swollen with the stress of nursing. "It’s none of my business to say you yea or nay, so why bother arguing and have done with it?"
"Don’t be melodramatic, Adele. I see enough of that in the theatre."
"Not near enough, I’d say," I retaliated.
"I beg your pardon?"
"Do you think I’m stupid? You’ve been away a lot lately, often well into the evenings. The sets needed redoing, that was the excuse, wasn’t it? Amazing thing…though you’ve been working twice as hard, you bring home no more pay than usual. I can’t recall Laurent being that miserly." I advanced on him, thrusting my naked torso out in defiance. "Where have you been, Jules? The taverns? The dance halls? With one of the other dancers perhaps…not Felicité, she’s to splendid for your sort…Jacqueline, perhaps?"
I’d plucked the name out at random, and my misery was complete when Jules paled visibly. "I see," I continued harshly. "Well, I wish you much joy in her. God knows enough have had it before you."
"At least Jacqueline makes no pretensions." Now caught, Jules redoubled his attempt at self-justification. "She doesn’t go about trying to trap men into wedding her…"
A sharp crack echoed in the room; I didn’t realize I’d struck him across the face until after I heard it. "You begged me to marry you, you selfish bastard! I wasn’t the one who proposed, and I certainly didn’t get a child off you on purpose, so don’t blame your indiscretions on me!" I was shrieking like a fishwife, but I didn’t care if our row was disrupting half the neighborhood. "You said just now the priest should remind me of my marriage-vows—maybe so, but you also made vows that night. To love, honor, and cherish….well, Jules, you’ve dishonored me in Jacqueline’s bed, and you don’t treasure my role as the mother of your child—or your mate. And love…did you ever love me, Jules? Or did you just feel guilty?"
He remained numb with shock and chagrin as my reprimand died out, then without a word he pushed past me, pausing only long enough to throw a shirt and coat over his chest before stalking out the door. Once the thump of the weathered oak in its frame finished the argument, I drew the shift around me and sank weeping onto our bed.
What had become of us? We were so happy, at first…the envy of more than a few of my fellow dancers in those joyful days before we had wed. Could bringing a child into the world have altered us so completely and contrarily? Maybe Jules was right…maybe I was too wrapped up in Meg’s upbringing. Mme. Deveraux, our neighbor, had three lusty imps to manage, and she still hung on her husband’s arm like a lovestruck adolescent. But then M. Deveraux was always swinging his children around in the air and laughing with them and saying ridiculously poetic things to his wife. If they were happy—and they were—it was because both of them were making an effort to be so.
Well then, I wasn’t going to give up. Perhaps Jules and I couldn’t be as blissful as the Deveraux family, but perhaps we could salvage the wreck we’d made. I could be a little more open, more attuned to his needs…and perhaps I could convince him to take a more active interest in Meg…
I’d believed my tears and thoughts would keep me awake the whole of the night, but at some point I must have drifted off, for I clearly recall being woken by the morning sun struggling through the dusty window.
Jules was still gone.
I was perturbed, but hardly surprised—I couldn’t blame him for not wanting to return to the scene of last night’s terrible altercation, and the notion that he might have taken shelter in some inn made perfect sense. So I went about my daily chores without even the slightest premonition of doom…not even when a sharp rapping summoned me to the door shortly before midday.
The inspector was young and well groomed, the very picture of respectability. "Madame Giry?" He paused only long enough for my affirmative. "I’m very sorry, but I must inform you…"
It was, ultimately, little more than a stupid accident. Once he had left the house, Jules had stormed off to one of his favorite haunts, where he and several acquaintances proceeded to get thoroughly drunk. The inspector tried to be discreet about the next part, but after some very direct inquiry he admitted that the establishment in question catered to its clients’ lusts as well as their thirst. Jules and a couple others made arrangements with some of the ladies employed there, and proceeded up the staircase to the rooms on the second level. On the way they became rather belligerent with each other, as the inebriated often do, and in the course of the brawl Jules was thrown down the stair. The fall broke his neck.
I became utterly dumb at the news, a fact which I think caused the poor inspector no small consternation. I was too shocked even to weep; all I could think of was Jules was gone, and my last words to him on this earth had been spoken in anger. The logical part of me knew that I was not responsible for the death, and yet guilt continued to plague my heart with its insidious badgering. And then, fear…the sudden realization that Meg and I would have no means for a living with Jules gone. There was a little money set aside, but not enough…not near enough to raise a hungry, growing child. Going to my family was entirely out of the question…so I would have to find employment. But where? Dancing was the only trade I’d ever learned, and I couldn’t go back to that now…
At some point during my agitation the inspector left; I can only assume he was new to the position and was not yet comfortable with human grief and fear. Later still Meg toddled in, sucking on a lock of hair the same strawberry-blonde color as her father’s. "Papa?" she inquired.
Only then did the tears come. "Gone. He’s gone, child."
She clambered up onto my lap and lay her little head against my shoulder, but she might have been on the other side of the earth for all the comfort it gave. Even as I held her in my listless arms, I knew I was entirely alone.
* * * * * * * * * *
The next several days were increasingly difficult, as friends and neighbors came by with their well-intentioned but meaningless condolences—was there anything I needed, and was everything all right? That last question always struck me as horribly stupid; how can things be right after what just happened? There was a great deal of whispering about myself and Meg—the poor girl, barely two-and-twenty and already a widow, not to mention the child…I bore it all as best I could, offering thanks for the sympathies and ignoring the gossip.
Worst of all was the funeral, for many members of the company came to give their respects. Jacqueline was conspicuously absent, but there were enough of the other dancers and stagehands there to serve as a cruel reminder of Jules’ indiscretions, the manner of his death…and the life I could never return to. And in a final insult, the priest drew me aside after the service to inform me that the parish’s charitable organization had declined my application for aid.
"I don’t understand," I whispered, failing to see why this lifeline had been pulled from my grasping hands. "Is there something wrong?"
"Adele," the priest began, displaying that condescending, officious manner that betrayed his own sense of self-righteousness, "the committee is dedicated to aiding those who have suffered unavoidable or unpredictable loss…"
"My husband is dead at twenty-three, is that not unpredictable?" I demanded.
He coughed delicately. "You must admit that his death was…not under the best circumstances. That tavern has a rather unsavory reputation…"
"Maybe so, but I certainly did not send him there!"
"It is more than that." His superior glance made me ill with shame. "Your own circumstances are rather questionable. The birth of your child came suspiciously soon after your marriage, and you’ve been associated with…a rather notorious profession. The committee felt it could not support you under the circumstances…"
"That I have made mistakes in my life, I do not deny," I said, trying to keep my composure in the face of his callous assessment, "but I am trying to atone for them, and I can’t understand why my daughter should be punished for my past."
"I am sorry." But he clearly wasn’t. "There’s nothing to be done…I hope you understand."
Oh, I understood. I understood that I had been condemned out of hand by a faceless council who had not seen my child or me…just a stage whore undeserving of charity. "It distresses me," I muttered, "to see the Church governed by men who imitate not the Son of God, but those who hung him on the cross." And with that I collected Meg in my arms and stormed out of the graveyard.
I returned home livid with fury, and spent much time pacing across the room in a surfeit of rage and humiliation. How dare that judgmental, supercilious man treat me in such a manner? Censuring me for sins long since repented was cruel enough, but to condemn my daughter to the same fate for no reason other than the misfortune of birth…. I clenched my jaw in anger, resisting the urge to scream, to cry, to visit retribution on the world until it understood how truly miserable I was….
That last thought gave me pause, for I remembered one man who did understand my sorrow…and much more. I had continued to dwell upon Erik’s mystery on occasion, usually in those pensive moments when one has no company other than thoughts. And in that instant of irrational grief and anger, I understood the white-hot rage that had led him to take the life of those who had wronged him…because I shared it. But even as I compared my case with his own, I knew that whatever I suffered must be paltry in comparison to the magnitude of the trials which that face must have led him to endure. Whatever pain I withstood now, he had surely experienced it ten times over…and he had survived.
Yes…that was the reason I continued to empathize with him; that was why I could never entirely condemn him for his crimes. For he had not been broken; his spirit was not crushed by the cruelty of his fellow man, but continued to burn bold and fierce in his silver eyes. And just as I was certain that he had survived in spite of the world, so I was certain that, had I been in his position, I would not have endured.
During the course of that night, I made a vow. I vowed that Meg would not end up lonely and desperate as I had, dependent on the whim of fate and the questionable charity of others. I would see her safe and well provided for when I could protect her, and when I could not I would council and guide her so that she might make her choices with wisdom. Nor would she be the instrument of injustice, but would be taught to open her hands to the helpless and unfortunate. And I knew that if she were to learn those lessons, I must master them myself.
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