Disclaimer: Ten chapters of asking, and ten chapters of the same old, same old - I don't own it. Happy?
Moonjava: Two reviews in a row! Many thanks, honorable reviewer!
MetalMysersJason: Be patiant, h's coming! Hang on, he was in the last chapter? what are you moaning about, then?
K'Tscharae: (Wow, what a username - like a tongue twister!) Wish I could dwell on dreams more - although some dreams are not so nice. And forgetting to live is not a very good idea. Fiction is very good for exploring 'what if'. Look at Lord of the Rings and His Dark Materials, for one. I am glad you have decided it's good enouhg to review. I hope other people will see it from your point of view soon enough. I just thought the story 'fitted', for some reason. What with 'the living corpse' and everything. Thank you so much for reviewing; I hope I live up to your further expectations!
SimplyElymas: Yes, we are united in 'seamstrossity' your newest word. Make way for the new Shakespeare on the block! Meg and Christine are very sweet - a pair of girls who will grow up very fast indeed, trust me. Good for you, that you find Erik cuddely in all his forms. As well as Nadir...especially Nadir, in your case...
Starfire: I forgive you, so long as you like it. Wait, is there a flaw in that logic? I'm so glad you like it so much. I was just struck iwth the idea, and I was so inspired I just started writing it down and posting. I love Harry Potter as well. It's out in July! I think. Meh. I hope it continues to be as good as you hope it to be. And enjoy this chapter, okay?
So, another chapter – only this time, all the way in the view of our little prima donna. Or Carlotta, in essence, since she isn't really a prima donna in this; just a Spanish girl who's been brought to France to get married off, and isn't making a very good job of it so far. About two weeks have passed sicne the events in Chapter Eight - as Chapter Nine might suggest - and as the wedding comes closer and closer, the girls are getting ready for the blessed event, in their own special ways. So read, and see what I mean.
Preparations
'Something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue.'
Traditional rhyme for weddings.
Carlotta concentrated on her embroidery – surprisingly, she had let Meg talk her into at least trying it; and although she still did not have much of a passion for it she had done quite a deal since the fortnight in which the others had arrived.
More than I have ever done in my life before, probably.
Of course, she would much prefer to play the piano, but the others had ruled that they preferred her to remain in silence while they had their quiet time in the day; and since they put up with her playing the rest of the time, she felt it was only right for her to concede in this situation.
Since there was nothing for her to read, the only thing left to her was her embroidery. Fortunately it was not the odious black on white stitching that she had been brought up with, but something rather nicer; the twin handkerchiefs that she and Meg were working on, as a present for Christine, for her impending marriage. At first she had believed that Christine would not be impressed with handkerchiefs; but Meg, as she had persuaded her to stitch, also persuaded her that the items would be fine presents – personally made, to show their affection for her.
And it was affection, in her case. She had only know Christine for about just about two weeks, but in that time she had come to regard her as closer to her than any of her so called 'relatives' in this country. Quiet but loving, the girl, who was only a few months younger than herself, was very sweet-natured; but not enough to be annoying to her, like Katherine, for she had a mischievous side as well – a side that Carlotta found very entertaining.
If Christine was Katherine, then Meg was certainly Rocío. The younger Giry definitely reminded her of her younger sister's sense of fun and adventure, but without any of her potential teasing or irritating personality. She only wondered what the duo must have been like back in Paris in their younger days, and what Christine and Raoul must have been like in their childhood together. Very wild, judging by what Buquet said whenever they trooped down to his hut to visit and talk with him, at least three times a week.
Briefly, she wished she could have had such companionship, instead of two painfully younger sisters, one too angelic and one too-
"Ah! Merde!" she hissed, as pain suddenly shot through her finger, and looking down she saw that she had unwittingly jabbed her needle into the aforesaid digit. Meg, who was sitting beside her and working on her own present, sighed; and swiftly pulled the material away lest she should get blood on it, leaving her to attempt to quell the pain in her hand. "Delicate ears," she scolded, glancing over at Christine, who sat absorbed in a book by the fire. Fortunately, she didn't look up, too interested in what she was reading. Satisfied that her interest would not be roused by what they were doing, Meg went on more jovially, though still quietly, "And besides, I wouldn't want Mamma thinking I'd been teaching you French swear words."
Carlotta paused in her attentions to her bleeding finger. "Do you know any swear words?" Yet another side of the charming little angel?
"Perhaps," Meg admitted. "But that's not the point, is it?"
"Si," she concurred grudgingly, or as well as she could as she sucked on her finger, the iron taste of blood filling her mouth.
Suddenly the door to the little parlour the girls had been granted to use as their own opened, and they looked up to see a footman standing in the doorway.
"Beg pardon, Mamselles; but Mademoiselle Daaé is to come to the Louis Philippe room as quickly as possible."
Christine looked up from her book, her tawny brown eyes shining with curiosity. "Why?"
The man bowed. "I believe it is because of the arrival of the Pastor Defarge."
"The Pastor?" Meg repeated slowly, as if hardly able to make sense of the word. It certainly didn't make much sense to Carlotta.
"The Pastor. Apparently the Comte Philippe the Elder wishes for a 'rehearsal' of the marriage ceremony."
"Very well. Tell them we shall be down directly."
As he left, Meg rose from her seat beside her, frowning. "Well, this is certainly unusual."
"You mean it is not a custom in France to have rehearsals?" she asked, as she got up in turn, carefully placing her sewing on her chair.
"Well, yes, but generally the day before the wedding – not about a week or so beforehand!" Meg shot back, as she glanced at Christine quietly marking her place in the book she had been reading, before standing up as well.
"It's their choice when the rehearsal is," she said mildly, placing the book on her own chair. "They are, after all, arranging the whole wedding."
"Yes, but it's your wedding," Meg pointed out. "You should at least have some say about when you rehearse it. We've hardly had any peace the past few days; and now this!"
"You think I don't think that?" Christine replied wryly, as she threw her hand to her forehead, in mock drama. "Heaven knows I have more to be troubled about than you, Meg Giry. You haven't been snapped in and out of dresses all week long, and measured and re-measured just to make sure the chosen wedding dress fits – as if they hadn't received the precise measurements we sent them eons ago." She sighed, as she lowered her head from her forehead; and for a moment, to Carlotta's eyes at least, she looked almost old, and tired. "And it isn't going to get any better after this wedding; only worse. Maids attending on me all the time, never leaving me alone even for a moment – more ridiculous gowns-"
"How can you call the dress 'ridiculous'? God; if I got to wear a dress like that, I'd never want for anything ever again!" Meg cut in, going distant eyed; obviously dreaming of wearing the dress herself.
"I certainly would," the other girl replied dryly, as she made for the door.
So would I. It was not that the dress was not beautiful – it was certainly lovely, made from cream and white silk and trimmed with foaming lace – but it was a little too extravagant for even her taste; she certainly would not wear such a garment at her wedding, if she should ever take such a part in such an occasion; and so, it would seem, would Christine.
But, she was the bride; and a bride must wear an extravagant white dress at her wedding, complete with a lacy veil. Christine had jokingly fussed about it at great length when they had been shown it only the other day – the latter had been so lacy, she had complained (in private, to them, of course) that she wouldn't be able to see where she was going with that thing over her face. "And we shouldn't have to worry about bad luck if Raoul sees me before the wedding by accident – he wouldn't recognise me anyway."
"Oh, and there's going to be lots of girls wearing white dresses and veils at the ceremony; surely you be lost in the crowd," Meg had quipped, making the three of them surrender to giggles, and dispelling the air of potential gloom that threatened to settle over them.
But it was settling upon them again, as they made their way along the various corridors – all three had by now become so familiar with the mansion that it took only a little while for them to make their way to the Louis Philippe room. Christine seemed distracted; biting her pink lips so that yet more colour came to them.
Pastor Defarge was certainly a surprise to all three of the girls – even Carlotta, who had never met him before, though she had been at the mansion for longer than the other two; the members of the de Chagny household were not great churchgoers, and for the past month she had not been able to attend a service on Sundays, a sore point with her. For some reason she, having learned that a pastor was a type of holy father in France, had expected someone like Padré Paolo back in Spain; a rickety old man, who looked as if a strong blast of wind, should it come, would surely topple him over.
Pastor Defarge was nothing like that. For a start, he wasn't old; he was a relative child in the world of the church, being, she guessed, in his early thirties. And he certainly looked nothing like any of the French people she had so far met; his skin, tanned and darker than most here, reminded her of the complexions back home, in a way that oddly comforted her. If he had not been a man of the church, he could very well have attracted the favourable attentions of many women with his height and build and generous features; as it was he wore the cloth of his station with remarkable ease, and greeted them courteously and with a pleasant Eastern French accent when they had first entered the room.
Now he supervised over the laying out of the room; the clearing of the furniture to the sides, and the setting up one of the tables in front of the main window, which gave a fabulous view of the grounds; even the spreading of a table cloth over it, to make it look more like an altar.
Meg, standing next to her, nudged her, and whispered, "Do you think they're having the wedding now, and not bothering with all the expense?"
She snickered, as they watched the footmen set out various chairs for the 'congregation' – namely the Comtes Philippe the Elder and Younger, Genevieve, Bernard, Celandine, Louis, Meg's mother and themselves to sit on. Christine and Raoul, of course, would not be sitting; they were already standing in front of the table altar; Christine still chewing her lip, Raoul casting nervous glances around the room. Raoul really was a very sweet boy, in her opinion, but he got nervous much too easily, also in her opinion. It was not necessarily a flaw, just sometimes an annoyance – to be a success in the aristocracy, you had to have large amounts of confidence and a certain amount of brashness, neither of which the young Vicomte seemed to have much of.
But he was kind, and gentle, and most importantly he clearly loved Christine; and that was what was most important to her and Meg. But if he got this nervous in the drawing room, she hated to imagine what he would be like in the actual church…
"Would the Mademoiselles kindly take their seats?" came the Pastor's voice. It took her a moment to realize that he meant them; but already Meg was pulling on her sleeve and bringing her forward, a smile plastered across her face. She wondered idly if she would have smiled so much if Pastor Defarge had been older and not so handsome; but the next moment she rejected such a nasty thought. Now I am beginning to think like the aristocrats.
The two sat down alongside Madame Giry - who was also by this time seated - and looked as demure as possible. She of course soon lost interest in what the Pastor was saying, namely because it had nothing to do with her. Instead, she watched the scenery in the window beyond him. The snow was still as white and almost blinding as it had ever been. Somewhere out there Buquet was making his obligatory rounds; and she actually found herself longing to go outside and walk along with him, even if they made no conversation; or even simply through the actual grounds, just for the sake of being outside. She blinked. My, I have changed in the past few weeks.
She blinked again. There appeared to be some sort of argument taking place up at the table. She focused on what was going on. Apparently the Pastor, though up until now seemingly a pleasant and gentle man, was irritated. More than irritated, actually. Annoyed, even. His voice was raised in evident emotion. She raised her eyebrows.
"You must learn your words, Vicomte! You cannot be married properly unless you can say the words perfectly!"
"Perfectly?" Raoul's shoulders sagged.
She nudged Meg. "What is happening?" she hissed.
"If you'd been paying attention, instead of gazing out of the window, you'd know," Meg replied smoothly. "They have to exchange vows on the day; and Raoul, it appears, is not very good at leaning large chunks of prose off by heart. Or any large amount of words off by heart."
"He has had ten years to prepare for this; and he still does not know his words?" It didn't make sense to her at all. Even she wouldn't still be this in-adept after so long!
Meg nodded. "So it would seem."
"It's all right, Raoul," came Christine's comforting voice from up by the makeshift altar. "You just need to get them into your head, is all. It's really not that difficult."
"It's all right for you, Christine," Raoul shot back, but good naturedly. "You've always been good at learning the words. For me, they just flow in one ear and out the other."
"Evidently," she heard the Comte Philippe the Elder mutter, with a slightly scorning air just behind her. She clenched her fingers at the sound of his voice; she couldn't bring herself to like Philippe the Elder, no matter what she did. He was always courteous to her, of course; but she could not forget the way he had questioned Christine on that first day, and how she had had to restrain Meg from making a leap at him, all the while burning with anger at how callously he regarded the girl whom at the time she didn't even know, but could still see was nothing of the sort that he suspected her to be. And he was disregarding of his own family members as well; from what she could tell he had arranged the marriage between Louis and Celandine. And that turned out very nicely, didn't it?
"Again, please, Mademoiselle and Monsieur," came the pastor's voice again.
"Well, that was a disaster, wasn't it?" Christine remarked mildly, as they entered the small parlour once more, the rehearsal having broken up about ten minutes before.
Meg shrugged as she sat down, taking up her sewing again. "Mamma always said that the worse the dress rehearsal is, the better the performance will be."
"How does that work, then?" she asked wryly, as she took up her embroidery herself, but did not sit down yet, as she set herself to untangling the threads that had somehow gotten extremely knotted together in the relative half hour she had been away.
Meg shrugged again. "I don't know. Mamma never said anything beyond that. I could ask her for you, if you like!" she added, now addressing Christine.
The other girl laughed. "No, no; I'll take your word for it." Her laugh turned into a sigh. "Oh, dear. Poor Raoul. It must have been so embarrassing for him. He never has liked learning phrases to recite. Or speaking in front of audiences. I remember one time," she went on, sitting back in her seat, "he had to recite a poem in front of the adults after dinner for some reason or another; and he was so nervous he actually vomited." She paused, and then added, with the mischievous smirk that Carlotta loved so well, "Of course, the whiskey he drank earlier might well have had something to do with it."
"What goes around comes around," Meg remarked without looking up from her work; but with a smirk of her own on her lips.
Carlotta gave up trying to sort out the threads, and instead walked over to Christine, as she opened her book again; leaning slightly over her she asked, with mild curiosity, "What are you reading?"
The other girl started – already she had been about to slip into her own little world of reading again. "Just a book I found in the library."
"Really?" she said, craning her head to try to see the name on the spine. "Who is it by?"
"Erik, I presume," she replied, turning to the first page so she could see the frontispiece.
"Just because he wrote that does not mean he wrote the book, you know."
"I know," Christine replied mildly, as she turned back to the page she had been on. "That's why I 'presume'. I was thinking of finding some poetry books for Raoul to read. Maybe reading and learning poetry will help him to remember what he has to say during the ceremony."
"Maybe. So, you will give him this book?"
"Of course. But only after I have finished reading it." And with that, Christine settled down in her chair, and was once more engrossed in her own little world.
For a moment she remained, looking down at her, almost curled up as she was in her armchair, her eyes scanning the pages before them. Then, with a sigh, she walked away, back to her seat; sat down, and once more began to endeavour to undo all the knots that had come about in her work.
Occasionally her eyes turned to she for whom the gift was being made. A white handkerchief, embroidered with different shades of blue, to adorn the white figure of the bride to be, the white dress that she would wear accentuating her pale skin. She could see it even now; that lovely, over the top dress; standing on its mannequin away in a room somewhere, covered up so as not to be ruined by dust; enshrouding the bride who was to wear it like a dress on a china doll.
She sighed internally, as she looked down at the design she was supposed to be embroidering at the moment – egg shell blue doves, a symbol of something; but of what she neither knew nor cared. Her finger was still aching from earlier, and hindering her work; and her eyes were hurting from peering so closely at the cloth, in such light.
I hate sewing, she decided. If I ever get married, I'm never, ever going to sew.
I don't know if anyone has noticed, but I have been making something of an effort with Carlotta's words and phrases. Theoretically my characters are speaking French, since they're in France and all; but since I don't really want to write the whole thing out in French I'm sticking with English for the time being. However, I feel a need to imply the difference of Carlotta's spoken French compared with the way the other characters speak. In 'POTO: What 'they' didn't want you to see!', I exaggerated her accent outrageously; here I decided to go for a different approach, and instead of emphasising vowel sounds simply tried to give her a slightly more clipped tone of speaking, implying that she thinks of what to say before she says it, and prefers to take easier routes of speech rather than string together complicated sentences and potentially give the wrong impression altogether. Her musings and thoughts are fluent, since theoretically she's thinking in Spanish, her mother tongue and the language she is most comfortable with; but her spoken words, which are in French – in the story, of course – are less fluent.
Also, I have made some changes to the character of the pastor in this crossover. In the Corpse Bride film the pastor is, as I have mentioned before, voiced by Christopher Lee, and is much older than thirty; but I decided to change his age for some reason known only to me – gad, potential forewarning again! I promised I wouldn't do that! Also, I changed his name – like most other names in this fiction – well, all, really, since I only know the names of the three main characters in the first place – not because I didn't like it, but because it was some Eastern European one I couldn't remember. Anyway, I got Defarge from A Tale of Two Cities, and I think it does very well.
Please review! I like reviews! They make the seamstress very happy, and I answer them nicely at the start of every chapter!