Chapter 10

The day following our arrival back at Madame Giry's home, I decided to go see Raoul and explain my decision to him in person, rather than writing a letter to him. I knew this was going to be difficult as Raoul had, thus far, stubbornly clung to his belief that I would eventually see that he and I belonged together. I hated to hurt him further, but I knew that I must tell him the truth.

When I arrived at the De Chagny house, I knocked on the door and waited for what seemed days before a maid opened the door. She eyed me with barely concealed distaste when I asked to see Vicomte De Chagny. Reluctantly, she showed me to the parlor, then left me. I stood gazing out the window thinking of the last time I had been in this room. It seemed history was doomed to repeat itself, I thought, with little amusement.

"Christine!" Raoul smiled happily as he entered the room and took me by the hands. "I trust you had a good journey to Boscherville and back?"

"Yes," I replied. "It was lovely. The journey and the village, I mean. And the house. It was all very lovely." I was stammering, suddenly nervous. I took a breath and disentangled my hands from his. That seemed to help. "What I mean is, we had a very enjoyable trip and the house was...well...lovely." At that we both laughed and I relaxed a little. Raoul had been my best friend years ago and I hoped that we could at least salvage our friendship out of this whole mess.

"Ah, I knew you would love it, little Lotte. I knew it the moment I saw it." He looked at me with so much love that I could hardly bear to hold his gaze.

"I do love it, Raoul. It is just perfect and I want to keep it, but you and I need to discuss some things first."

"What do you mean you want to keep it? Of course you will keep it, it is yours, silly."

"Yes, I know you had the papers drawn up to make it mine, but that doesn't mean that I have to keep it. You see, it is too extravagant a gift for me to simply accept it. That is why I have come to see you this morning. There are some things that I have to make you understand. If I accept the house and simply move in, I will feel beholden to you. I know that is not your intention, Raoul. I know you well enough to know that you have nothing but my well being in mind, but other people will not be so generous in their imaginings."

"Other people can be hanged for all I care!" Raoul burst out. "You are always so concerned with what other people think! Can't you see? I don't care what other people think. They will see soon enough when you and I are married and then they will wish they hadn't had such thoughts."

"Perhaps you don't care now, but at some point you will, Raoul. Please listen to what I have to say. What I am proposing is that I purchase the house from you."

Raoul stared at me a moment as if I had just casually mentioned that I was visiting from another planet, then he burst out laughing. "You want to buy it from me?"

Insulted, I raised my chin up a notch and glared at him. "That is what I said, is it not?"

"Forgive me, my darling, but the idea of you buying the house from me is simply ridiculous. For one, I would never allow it and two, you have no means to pay for it. Oh, my little Christine, you always manage to surprise me. Won't you simply accept the house and let it be? It's not as if you will be living there all your life, anyway."

Closing my eyes, I counted to ten and tried to hold my anger in check. I had never had a quick temper before, but suddenly I wanted to scream in anger and frustration. I took a moment to compose myself, then continued. "No, I don't have the means right now, but Madame Giry, Meg and I have decided that we will open a school for young girls. I will handle vocal lessons and Meg will offer dance while Madame Giry manages the school. Until we are able to open the school, I thought I would attempt to acquire a position as a vocal teacher to young ladies about to make their debut into society. I believe that having a passable singing voice is a requirement for all young ladies to entertain guests, is it not?"

Raoul's look of amusement faded as I talked. "I suppose it is a skill that could be useful. But if you are trying to pay me for the house, how will you have the money to open the school?"

"I don't know," I said quietly. "We haven't worked out all the details, yet, but I just know that our school will be a success."

"I have no doubt that it would be, my darling," Raoul said, softly. "But you know that you will eventually have to give that up when we have a family. I know you don't want me to bring that up right now and I promised to give you some time, but I also know how very much I love you and I will not be put off forever, Christine."

"I know that, Raoul. That is the other reason I am here today. I want you to know that I never wanted to hurt you. You have been my friend since we were little and that is the very last thing I would ever want. I know you love me and you imagine that we are meant to be together, but I know now it is not meant to be. I care for you, Raoul, but not in the same way you love me. I have been confused for many months about my feelings for you and I have finally come to realize that my love for you is not the love that you want or need. You deserve to have a woman who loves you with all her heart and will marry you no matter what the consequences. I am not that woman, Raoul."

"What are you saying, Christine?" Raoul had taken a step back and I could see his knuckles were white where he gripped the back of a chair. "Are you saying that you don't love me?"

"That's not it, Raoul. I know it's hard for you to see, but our relationship is never going to work. You and I want different things. You want a wife who will manage your household and bear you children and live contentedly only seeing the opera from a special box above the audience. I want to be on that stage! Not viewing it from a box. I want to be involved in every part of it. I want to teach other young girls the skills that I have been taught and watch them shine on that stage as well. I love the opera, Raoul and it will always be a part of me."

"I didn't realize it meant that much to you, but that is a minor consideration. It changes nothing. If you wish to continue your stage career, then you shall. You know I would never try to keep you from what you love!"

"I know you wouldn't, but it's more than that. We come from two completely different worlds. But even if we could overcome that, even if we moved far away, it would still not be enough, Raoul."

"How could it not be enough? Our love is enough, Christine! What is this that you are saying to me? We made promises to each other, promises that I will honor. I believe in us, in our love! There was a time when you believed in that too. You said you loved me."

"I do love you, but as my friend, not as I should love my future husband. I am sorry, Raoul." I looked at him, miserably, unsure what else to say.

I could see that he was trying hard to control his emotions. His eyes had filled with unshed tears and he struggled to keep them from falling. "You don't mean that," he finally managed, his voice thick. "You love me, Christine, you're just confused right now."

My own tears had begun to fall now. "No, Raoul. I am seeing clearly for the first time in a very long time. It breaks my heart to hurt you like this!"

"Then don't!" He cried, crossing the room quickly and taking my hands in his. "Don't do this, Christine, don't leave me like this. You can learn to love me as a husband, I know it. I am willing to accept that, Christine, I want to marry you and I know you will learn to love me as a wife should eventually. We are meant for each other! Why can't you see that? The love I have for you is enough for both of us for now. Stay with me, Christine."

His tears were flowing, unnoticed down his cheeks now. His eyes, so blue, so full of anguish, looked at me, pleading with me. Everything within me cried out to comfort him, to say whatever he wanted me to say to just make him stop looking at me like that, stop breaking his heart like this.

"No, Raoul. I can't do that. I'm sorry. I never meant to hurt you. I'm sorry." It seemed so little. So pathetic to offer a pitiful "I'm sorry," as if that would erase all of his pain. I knew that it couldn't and yet, I didn't know what else I could say. For I truly was sorry. I reached up and wiped the tears from his eyes, then I kissed his wet cheek. "Goodbye, Raoul," I whispered as I felt a sob rising in my throat. I choked it back as best I could and walked around him and out the door.

When I arrived back at Madame Giry's, she took one look at my face and simply hugged me silently. I had never been so grateful for her presence before. I cried until I am sure I ruined her dress completely. She rocked me back and forth as if I were a child and I realized all that I had missed by not having a mother all those years and began to cry even harder. Presently, when the sobs had finally subsided, I got up and helped Madame and Agnes with dinner. I was not ready to talk about it,yet, so for once, I was very grateful for Meg's inane chatter at the table that evening. I excused myself early and went to bed, falling into a restless sleep.

I awakened sometime in the night and was unable to go back to sleep. I got up and crept out the kitchen door and walked in the garden, hoping against hope that Erik would come back to check on Madame Giry. I was disappointed when, after about an hour of walking around aimlessly, there was no sign of him. Trying to swallow my disappointment, I walked back to the kitchen door and tried to open it. It was locked! I took a deep breath and tried again. Same result, it was locked. I didn't want to wake Madame Giry or Meg and I wasn't certain that they could hear me from their bedrooms even if I did begin beating on the door, so I crept out of the garden and around to the front of the house, feeling my way through the dark. I stepped on something sharp and had to bite my lip to keep from crying out as I felt my way around the corner to the front of the house.

There was no moon out tonight, so it made my task that much harder. I finally reached the porch and climbed the steps to try the front door. I knew it would be locked, but I had been hopeful enough that I was now disappointed to find that it was, indeed, locked.

Miserably, I sat down on the front steps, thinking about what I should do now. I decided that, despite the fact that they were bound to wonder what I had been doing out in the middle of the night, I had to awaken Meg or Madame Giry to let me in. I walked out to the street and gathered a few rocks, then back to the small front yard. I positioned myself under Meg's window and threw one of the rocks. It flew wide, missing the house altogether. I sighed. It was going to be a long night.

"Ah, look what I've found out here all alone in the middle of the night, no less" The voice,coming from the darkness behind me, made me jump and I dropped the few rocks I had been holding and whirled around, searching for it's source.

"Who's there?" I asked, my voice barely audible.

"All in good time,love, all in good time. Now be a good girl and don't scream and I promise to be gentle" the voice said, closer now. I couldn't see in the darkness, but I was certain that I likely made a fairly easy target for him in my white shift. In a blind panic, I turned and ran, not knowing or caring where I was going, only knowing instinctively that I must get away from whomever this was, right now.

"You're gonna regret that," he said, just inches behind me it seemed. I felt a hand grasp my shoulder and as I tried to wrench out of his grasp, his full weight barreled into me and we fell, together, to the ground. I immediately twisted and tried to get back up, but a large hand grabbed me and pulled me back down. I clawed at him with my nails, not knowing what parts of him I might be scratching, but hoping somehow I might manage to cause him some injury. I must have done some damage because I heard him cry out in pain and the next thing I knew, pain exploded on the left side of my head as he slammed his fist into my face. I cried out and he hit me again. Time seemed to slow down, though it could only have lasted mere minutes. All of the fight had gone out of me by then and my brain could only register one concept; escape. Despite my sobbing pleas for him to stop, again and again his fist connected with my flesh. He didn't seem to care where it landed, my head, neck, shoulders. I felt his weight leave me as he stood and I had a moment's relief until he kicked me and I felt, as well as heard, a sickening snap in my ribcage. Near unconscious now, I tried to crawl away and this infuriated him further. He grasped my hair and dragged me back and I could smell the stink of him despite the fact that blood was now pouring from my nose. I tried to plead with him, but was incapable of speech by now, then he hit me again and everything went black.

I don't know how much later it was when I awakened, but I was in complete darkness. As my thoughts struggled to become more coherent, I assumed that the darkness meant I will still outside and my attacker could be anywhere, since I no longer felt him holding me down. I tried to push myself up but was prevented from moving by the incredible pain that shot through my body. I cried out in agony and I heard another voice, this one soothing. "Be still, Christine. You mustn't move. No, don't speak either, it will only cause you more pain. You must do as I command now, do you understand?"

I turned toward the voice of my Angel in the darkness, trying desperately to see him. I reached for him, blindly, and felt his cold hand grasp mine and I closed my eyes and allowed the darkness to claim me once again.