Of Phantoms and Angels

XIII. Belle-Lille

Will you be my valentine?

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     If the stiff seat and the bumps weren't unpleasant enough, the silence that settled between him and his passenger certainly was.  It hadn't been so before - he had been perfectly content to ignore her and brood over being forced into this long and uncomfortable trip.  But this little girl's words seemed to press up against him and make him uncomfortable in his cloak.

     The girl is completely naive, the poor thing, he thought with distaste; the world is going to walk all over this one.

     And yet, there was once a time when he felt compelled to shelter this poor, innocent woman from the harshness.  But she was too soft, too weak, and too big a waste of my time.

     However, the things she said stirred something inside him; a part of him that wished they were true.  There was a brief moment when he had thought that perhaps her naivety could do him good.  But, he had shut out all hope long ago, learning that there was no place for it within him - and he resented her for arousing it in him.

     He led the carriage into the quaint town with its streets lined with flowers.  This was not a place for a person like himself; he could easily hide in the crowds of Paris, but in a small town like this, he would stand out.  He hated this journey more and more.

     "Could you stop here, please?"

     Her small voice sounded behind him, like a mouse - small and skittish - and he eased the carriage to the side of the streets.  Climbing down, he stretched his legs as he watched the girl walk down the street.  Ever the dancer, he thought amusedly as he watched her dancer's feet carry her swiftly and gracefully through the morning mist.

     Suddenly, she stopped by a roadside stall, where a man in a burret was selling flowers. She bought a single bud - a lily.  If she's brought me all this way to buy flowers... he wasn't sure what painful end she might meet for a round-trip of cramped legs, a stiff back and a sore rear over a bouquet.  He saw her pull the ribbon from her hair - a long black ribbon - and tie it around the flower and her small coin sac.

     Suddenly, with her hair hanging lose down her back, she seemed older somehow.  The pretty young face somehow seemed more striking, framed by her gentle waves of honey.

     He watched her, curiously, as she crossed the street; she laid the flower and the money on the walkway by the door of a small home and knocked slowly.  Then she fled.  She was already at his side again by the time the door opened.

     A man stepped out, a young girl of four or five years following him. The little girl stooped, picking up the gift, taking a special interest in the flower.  The man picked her up, handing her to the woman who joined him by his side, and they all look far down each direction of the street. The carriage driver looked down to the girl who stood next to him.

     "I must return to the opera house, now," she ordered, in an obvious hurry to leave.  Suddenly, he felt a pang of empathy for her; he knew all too well the look on her face.  The look of horrid longing.

     He clicked his tongue and the horses moved on.  He directed them back the way they'd come with less dread than he'd started this journey with - he no longer seemed to feel bitter over his aches and taking a trip that he should never have had to take in the first place.

     "Who were they?" he asked simply after several minutes of silence, making certain that his voice wasn't his own.

     "My family.  Ma mère, mon père et ma petite sœur.  They're the reason I came to the Opéra Populaire."