Raoul watched the professor fill two syringes - one with a murky substance and the other with a fluid almost like water. He stirred valerian root into hot water and followed the Viscount upstairs for treatment. Meanwhile, Christine remained in bed waiting for the cures. She hoped they would work - hoped that she could be normal around her precious child.
She watched Gustave from across the hall play with his trains and make the trolleys run into his blocks which were stacked to form "brick walls". He looked up and saw his mother, then turned around to play with his train set as the professor and Raoul made their way into the bedroom. Professor Faure had two syringes and a teacup and she hoped that one of these many tinctures would cure her of her madness.
"All right, Christine," he set down the teacup on the end table and picked up a syringe filled with a murky substance, "Two vaccinations and a brew of valerian root tea. This one hurts much more, so let us do this first."
Christine stiffened up as he rubbed her arm with alcohol to prepare her for the vaccination. She winced as she felt the needle sink into her bare arm, exhaling to stop from crying. He dropped the syringe and picked up the next one and she suddenly began to feel very dizzy. Her head was cloudy and she felt as if she could not move.
"Last one, dear, and then I want you to drink all of the tea."
Christine watched cloudy-eyed as Gustave stepped into the room and climbed into bed beside her. The professor rolled down her sleeve and pushed up the other for her second vaccination. Gustave watched the needle sink into her arm and he thought it intriguing.
"That is all," Professor Faure put the two syringes in a wool sack and lifted the tea cup to Christine, "Now drink. I will be back tomorrow morning to see your progress."
"Thank you, Monsieur," Raoul nodded.
"Any time, Viscount. Best wishes to you and your wife."
Christine sat dizzily beside her child, the drug still affecting her mentally. She pinched her temples, fighting off the headache from that awful substance. Gustave looked up at mama and set down his train set, feeling sorry for her.
"I forgive," he said with a hug, "I love Mama."
Christine smiled and weakly embraced her boy as Raoul stepped downstairs with a wooden pipe in his hand. He headed for the writing desk at the far left corner of the room and smirked when he saw Christine begin playing with Gustave and his train set. As he filled the pipe with tobacco plant he gazed at the paper and grinned at the headline.
"I did not know you smoked, Raoul."
He lit the plant and inhaled the bitterness of tobacco smoke, "It is a recent habit."
A servant had ushered Professor Faure into the parlor and he smiled at both Christine and Gustave playing together. He went to the left of the room and sat in green, floral-patterned chair behind the writing desks'. Raoul inhaled another puff of the tobacco smoke and the professor nodded and took out his own pipe.
"I had no idea you smoked, Monsieur."
"Recent habit," Raoul removed the pipe from his mouth and nodded in Christine's direction, "She's been rather irritable, but I think the treatment is helping with her hallucinations."
"She seems to be just fine," Professor Faure lit his pipe and inhaled, "Any dizziness or trembling?"
Raoul nodded after another intake of smoke, "She could not keep up this morning. She almost put her bloomers on over her linens."
The men laughed at the mental image and Christine took Gustave up to his room to play. Professor Faure stood to dump the ashes of what little tobacco he had left into the fireplace, stuffing the pipe in his trouser pocket.
"No issues with anything else, then? She has an easy time keeping up with household duties?"
"She seemed all right in that area. Although we have servants that take care of most, if not all, of those things."
"Right," Faure removed his top cat for a moment to wipe the soot from his forehead, "A treatment every other day shall do. The drugs are very intense and too much would cause the hysteria to progress. Then it is on to treatment number two and if that doesn't work, well..."
"What? What is worse than treatment two?"
"She could be sent to a sanitorium. They supposed help the mentally ill, but it is really an excuse to do experiments on the poor or insane."
"Oh."
"Yes. Nasty business, Viscount," the professor looked at the paper on the writing desk and smiled, "Have you shown her the paper? It may put her conscious to rest."
Raoul skimmed the headline further and thought it would frighten her more because of the fact that they haven't found anything resembling a body. He inhaled from the pipe again before dumping its remains into the fireplace.
"Not yet. I fear it may just frighten her more since they haven't found his body."
"A fair enough assessment," Professor Faure put his hat on again, smoothing out his waistcoat, "Well, de Chagny, I wish your family the best. I will be back tomorrow for more injections. Do not forget to give her the valerian root tea at night. It takes care of her hallucinations."
"Yes, professor," Raoul set the wooden pipe into a drawer of the writing desk and began to read the paper, "Have a good evening, Faure."
"You as well, de Chagny."
Raoul watched as the professor left the manor, then turned his head over to the paper. It might have frightened Christine had she seen it, but it also made him weary. His sworn enemy could have been lurking anywhere: Opera Ghost Sworn Dead, Despite Missing Remains...
