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Mme. Sorel squinted into the afternoon sunlight. From her lawn chair she watched the horseless carriage pull into the pathway which led to her villa. Its sputtering engine wasn’t loud enough to drown out the crunch of last year’s leaves crushed under its iron wheels. A tall slim figure in black trousers got out, and Sorel shook her head in irritation at the mechanical contrivance. Filthy stinking things, with all the smoke they spew out, Mme. Sorel thought. And she couldn’t even manage to come herself, just sent her driver. As if the post wouldn't do.
As the dark-clad figure approached the villa's broad green lawn, Sorel almost dropped her lourgnette in surprise. In a sudden gust of wind, the driver's cap suddenly blew off. It was not a chauffeur after all, but instead a lean, graceful woman. She retrieved her leather cap and clamped it down on short dark hair shot through with iron-grey.
"Baroness," Mme. Sorel said as she stiffly rose to her feet, suppressing a small swift despair at the ache in her hip. The other woman's little black-gloved hand was warm in hers, and surprisingly firm. "Welcome. I wasn't sure at first that you'd come. I suppose I'm too used to carriages and coachmen. Now it seems we women can be our own coachmen." Sorel didn't look all that happy at the prospect.
The Baroness Castelot-Barbezac hesitated for a second, unsure of herself but not showing it. Then she embraced Sorel warmly, wrapping her long arms around the astonished woman. "I never thought you would invite me."
Sorel removed herself gingerly from Margaret Castelot-Barbezac's embrace. "I've only set up housekeeping here a few years back. It's finally habitable. But I forget myself. Come have a cocktail, Baroness Meg. Something tells me we'll need one."
The gin fizzes were cold and the bubbles went to the nose of the Baroness Castelot-Barbezac, once called “Little Meg.” After the second one, each woman pulled a letter from her pocket or reticule almost at the same time. "Let's see yours," Sorel said.
"You first."
"Very well. He asks for an audience. Wants to interview me about that wretched girl, I'd forgotten her name entirely until he mentioned it. The one who caused such a stink, and then disappeared."
Meg smoothed out the crisp creamy paper and read aloud, "'My recent conversation with your sister led me to believe that you could offer some further insight into the relationship between your late husband and the mysterious personage known to your family as ‘the Opera Ghost,’ or more succinctly, ‘the Ghost’.”
"What's that about? Those silly games you used to play with the other little rats?"
"I imagine. What else could he mean? Whatever we saw, or thought we saw ... anyway, they were just silly games, after all. We were insufferable, weren't we?"
"I should have drowned you all, like the rats you were. Anyway, I don't want to see him," and Sorel threw her own letter down on the table.
"What harm would it do, though?"
"Perhaps none, for you. But I'm living off my capital here, just barely. Any publicity and they'll raise my taxes.”
“They can’t do that,” Meg began to explain in a patient voice, but Sorel cut her off.
“I’ll have curiosity seekers driving their machines through my gardens. There will be photographers, and all that chaos will bankrupt me." Sorel wiped her lourgnette. Meg was so slim in her trousers. The envy stung, and she thought, Well, she is a good six or seven years younger than me, after all.
"I suppose you're right,” Meg said. “I suspect he knows more than he's letting on, though. In any event, he won't get anything from me unless he gives something first. And there were Antoine's, uh, I mean the Baron’s diaries, not that I'd normally tell some Parisian journalist about those. There were a few mysterious passages, though, and perhaps he can explain them."
"So the Baron had secrets from you? That's news. If you don't mind me saying."
Meg's eyes gleamed like cool black spots of ice. "Of course he had secrets. He was more than forty years my senior, so how could he not? But that, no, the men were never a secret. Although he did have this friend before our marriage … No, not like that. This man he called 'Erik,' and Antoine didn't think it was his real name. What he wrote about him was odd, and I'll tell neither you, nor that journalist."
"But you will see him, it sounds like."
"Yes."
"I don't know if I can. Because, you know, he'll want to talk about ... that night." Tears gathered in the corners of Sorel’s eyes, though none wetted her plump cheeks.
"Sorelli ..." Meg put her hand on the older woman's, and this time Sorel didn't shrug it off. She looks so lost, Meg thought. She's been all over Europe, has danced her feet into powder, almost, and yet in some way she's never left the Place de l'Opera. "There never really was anyone else, was there?"
The breeze had stopped, and it was suddenly very quiet. Even the birds stopped their chatter, as if waiting for Sorel’s answer. "Oh, there were men here and there. I had to have someone on my arm or in my bed, didn't I? But no, no one else, not like that. God, why does he have to come now, wanting to drag all of it up? It was different for you. You didn't really love the Baron, did you?"
"Not in the same way, no. But he was kind, and a good friend."
"I'll tell that rumor-monger 'No.'"
"Of course. You don't have to see him. But just think of this as a possibility, Sorelli. No man is so dead as the one who lies forgotten. Tell the Comte de Chagny's story. You've told me a little, and always led me to think there was much more."
Sorel shrugged. "Who wants to hear about the old loves of an old woman?"
"I do," Meg said softly.
Sorel waved her hand aimlessly, as if trying to brush Meg's words away. Then, as if giving in after a long struggle, she rose and offered her arm. "Let's walk."
It wasn't until they reached the edge of the wheat field, soft green with tender shoots, that the two women drew close enough so that their heads almost touched each other, and they began to talk.