Chapter Four: The Phantom's Music.
Christine was left to herself for quite some time before the phantom dared to return to the manner house. The chill of winter had begun to creep across the land and though the foliage of her beautiful gardens were dying away, falling into the eternal sleep of winter, the fragrance of millions of blooming roses filled her house still. The curtains that adorned most of the windows of her house remained closed in this time of chill and though she marveled in the sunlight, winter always brought to her sadness. Her father had died in the winter; her heart had been attacked by the phantom in the grave yard as snow covered the ground and so she found herself trying to shut winter out of her world completely. The only room that remained open to the winter sun was the greenhouse and it was only this way to benefit her roses.
The countess also held a secret that only those closest to her kept. Christine's health was failing. It had been getting worse and worse since she had left the opera house and married Raoul. She became weaker with every passing year and her pain increased. Something was happening to Christine but her doctors couldn't tell her what was really going on. It was a mystery to everyone and Christine knew that it wouldn't be long before it took over her life and she would be incapacitated by it.
As the tempests of winter blew into Christine's world, Erik returned to her as well and their plan was set into motion. Philippe had been given instruction to show the man in, place him in the music room, and to tell him to remain there until the countess could attend to him. He waited patiently for her, and when he did finally arrive and Christine joined him, covered from head to toe in dark fabric and moving as if the winter chill had crippled her body he felt an uneasiness and doubt cripple his reserves. He was shocked by her appearance and though the room was warm and bright, by the fire, Christine shivered by the chill of the storm.
"You are not well, I will return another day," he said as he watched her cross the room and place herself in an armchair by the fire.
"No, we will discuss this now," she said haughtily, "come, show me your face and sit with me a while by this fire."
"I apologies for taking so long to return to you," he said as he removed the hood from this head and the mask from his face. He had returned the familiar mask after the last visit and had not removed it from his face since; even though he had not been in her presence again.
"You have been busy, I assume, what have you brought for me?" she asked.
"I have brought you the final edition of the manuscript you asked for," he said and reaching into a bag at his side he produced the sheets bound in a leather cover that made up Les Miser de L'amour.
"Am I to assume it is a tragedy?" Christine asked as she viewed the manuscript.
"Yes, that is correct," Erik answered.
"For now, this is acceptable I suppose but they will know it's you if you continue to write in this dark fashion," She said and handed the manuscript back to him.
"This is how I write," he said offended by her statement.
"I know," Christine said, "play some of it for me." She ordered.
Erik sat and stared at her for a moment as he contemplated the demands that he had just been presented with. Christine had changed in a way that he wasn't sure he liked. He saw that too much of her spirit had been jaded. She looked old to him, her beauty seemed to be fading away with ever passing second, and he wasn't certain he liked to be in her presence anymore.
"You do not like to be ordered about," Christine said with a sigh, "I am sorry but I do not take well to order either. My life was filled with them and I have vowed now never to be ordered around again. I had it first from my father, then from the ballet mistress, then from you and last from Raoul. I will not suffer that ever again. You best understand that, if you want my help."
"I understand," Erik said softly feeling the sting of the past upon him.
"Very well, if you do not feel like paying you may leave that on the piano for a day when I am well enough to play it myself, but at this time I am unable and quite fatigued. So you may play or you may go. Either way I will not be very entertaining." She said as she walked across the room to where a large cedar chest rested again a wall. She opened it, pulled from it a knit cover and returned to her seat.
"I believe you have long been wanting my absence, Madame, I apologies for keeping you so long." Erik said as he stood.
"It is as you wish," She answered closing her eyes.
Erik paused again, not knowing quiet how to read Christine. She was blank; all of her spirit had been taken from her. Raoul had stolen all of her liveliness. She was sad, dark; falling deeper into a depression than he had known but that he wished would not fall upon her. He had let her go in the beginning so that she would not become like him and yet here she was, a phantom in her house, quiet, fragile, letting life pass her by.
The wind blew in gusts outside as the windows rattled in their casings and the drapes tried their best to muffle the sound. He walked slowly to the piano and casting his traveling cloak, his sack and his dinner coat aside, he sat down, opened the manuscript to the overture and began to play what he had written for the orchestra in a condensed form.
"It is lovely," Christine whispered after several movements had passed and Erik continued through. "I am hearing things I haven't heard in years. There are very familiar melodies. There are moments of great warmth, sweetness, love and great affliction. It needs to be performed."
"I thank you Madame for you compliments," Erik said never ceasing his playing.
"Tell me, has this been your obsession these past ten years, or have you written other works?" she whispered.
"There are others," He answered, "but I am most pleased with this one at the present."
"Very well," Christine said. "We, you and I, will be making a trip to the Opera Populair very soon. I would have wished to see winter well behind us but I think that this should not wait. So, I will ask you to come to me in one week's time in the daylight. We will then plan our arrival."
"Would it not be better, Madame, if I simple met you there?" he asked still at the piano.
"No, though I assume you continue to haunt the opera I do not. I have a plan and thought I have never wanted to return to the opera I have decided that in such cases as these it will be best if I make a rather grand and shocking appearance." Christine said.
"You wish for me to be with you, walking arm in arm into the theatre were they fear me more than anything?" he asked.
"They will not fear you when I am through." Christine said. "You must trust me, for I have developed a plan that shall redeem you and make you one of the greatest composers ever to grace the stage of the Opera Populair. But I have one question that I must have you answer before I can move forward in any of this business."
"I will answer anything," he said as he stopped playing, placed the manuscript on the top of the piano and pulled on his dinner coat.
"What is your name?" she asked.
"You know it to be Erik." He answered.
"Yes, but what of a surname?" she asked.
"That should not be of any consequence." He said.
"But it is," she stated, "for you will not be known to them and I will introduce you by name. What then shall they call you for all of the great composers of the past are know primarily by their surnames."
"Then you may call me Monsieur Reneaux," he said without much confidence.
"I believe you are unaccustomed to being addressed in such a way, Monsieur Reneaux, but you shall have to become more familiar with it, for this is to be your coming out. It will change you and put you into a class as a great and gifted composer." Christine stated. "Le Fantom is a thing of the past. We, neither of us, are ghosts anymore."
And with that Christine turned her face back to the fire and seemed to fall away from her reality once again. Her stare was blank, the colour was lost from her face and Erik took this silence as a signal that their meeting was over. He felt uncomfortable with the way she had been speaking, but her confidence in his ability was unlike anything he had experience before. What could she have planned for him? He would have to wait and find out in one weeks time when he returned to her house.