Stories Like This Can't Come True
"Christine? Signora?"
Leonardo Dellano's soothing voice penetrated the black haze that surrounded her, and her eyes fluttered open as she attempted to pull herself back from oblivion. The first thing that registered was the worried face of her manager hovering over her, and the second was that she was lying prone upon the divan in her dressing room. For a moment, Christine remained confused as to how she had come to be in such a position, but then her gaze came to rest upon the nervous figure of Raoul de Chagny pacing in front of the door.
A shiver of dismay raced along her spine as she remembered his last words to her before the world had gone dark.
'Erik is my brother'
Dear God, it couldn't be true…such a twist of fate was beyond belief! Yet why must it be more unbelievable than everything else that had come to pass? Her heart was thundering in her ears, pumping dread through her system as the effects of his words fully took hold of her. She struggled to sit up, only to be pressed back by Leonardo.
"No, mia cara. You must rest," he insisted. "I have sent for the doctor."
Christine shook her head in adamant refusal. "There is no need, Leo. I am not ill," she vowed, despite the sudden rush of nausea swirling in her belly.
Raoul stepped forward then with his concerned blue eyes fixed upon Christine, even as he addressed Signor Dellano. "I am afraid that I gave Christine some rather shocking news."
Leonardo glared at the younger man and arose to stand protectively in front of Christine. "Did I not tell you to leave? Mio Dio, I should never have let you near her!"
Christine finally managed to sit up and reached out to grip Leonardo's hand, begging, "Please don't, Leo. No harm was done. I was only momentarily overwhelmed, just as the Vicomte said."
He observed her pale complexion warily. "You look most unwell, Christine."
"You mustn't worry so, Leo," she said. "Please go and stop the doctor from coming. I must finish speaking with the Vicomte."
Leonardo looked ready to argue, but was stopped by the determined look in Christine's eyes. He nodded curtly, clearly unhappy to leave her alone once again with the man who had caused her such distress, and then he did as he was asked with a final glare of warning to Raoul.
Once again alone with her former fiancé, Christine sat staring at him in bewilderment whilst her mind struggled to process what had been revealed to her. She studied his aristocratic features, searching for some resemblance to Erik, and she found none. Perhaps there might be some small similarity around the mouth and chin, but that was hardly proof of his claim. Apart from his insistence that Philippe de Chagny's journals revealed some, as yet unknown to her, information, he had not given her a reason for his belief that Erik was somehow a De Chagny.
As if reading her mind, or the unmasked skepticism in her eyes, he said, "You do not believe me."
"Can you blame me? My God, Raoul…I have not seen you in more than three years, and you come bearing such an outrageous story."
"I wish it were no more than a story, Christine," he snapped irritably. "Do you think that I want to claim that...that...creature...as my blood?"
Christine stood swiftly in anger; his cruel words cut her deeply, though she would not allow him to see. She was thankful that her equilibrium did not revolt at her sudden movement. "If the thought is so repulsive to you, then why pursue this insane notion?"
"I have no choice, Christine," he said with hands spread in helpless frustration. "I must know the truth…and God help me, if this man is my brother, I must attempt to make amends for the great wrong that my family has committed."
Dear Raoul, she thought with some little bitterness, ever the noble knight determined to fight for justice.
She could sense no treachery in him, yet her entire body was coiled defensively around the secret that she guarded. That Raoul had sought her out in the hope of finding Erik made her situation precarious at best. He had undoubtedly been hoping that the former Phantom had somehow learned of her growing fame, and having once again sought out the object of his obsession, was even now lingering in the shadows of the theater. Raoul could never know how very close to the truth his notion had been. She would not betray her angel again.
"How can this even be true, Raoul?" she desperately questioned "To have a brother that you never even knew of."
An incredulous look passed over his features. "Need you ask? You have seen his unmasked face."
"That is no excuse for a innocent child to be denied," she cried, once again pressing a protective hand over the rings that remained hidden beneath her dressing gown.
Raoul stood contemplating her outburst for a moment before quietly responding, "I am inclined to agree, but you did not know my father, Christine."
A sudden memory of the portrait that hung in the library of the Chateau de Chagny appeared before her eyes, and she sank back down upon the divan in shock. She had once spent long hours gazing at that image during her engagement to Raoul, and it had never failed to remind her of Erik. At the time, she had thought it merely her own melancholy and guilt transforming the old Comte's arrogant features into those of her angel, but now she wondered how she could have failed to notice the resemblance. And Philippe de Chagny, with his dark looks and the familiar curve of his lip….there had always been something in his appearance that had made her uneasy, and now she wondered if she had unconsciously been comparing his disdainful sneer to that of the Phantom.
She was visibly trembling from the force of these revelations, and Raoul knelt beside her in concern. "Christine, are you unwell? Shall I fetch the manager?"
"No," she managed to whisper. "Please Raoul, tell me everything."
He hesitated, looking at her queerly, and Christine wondered what he must think, seeing her interest so clearly invested in learning of Erik's past. Without comment, Raoul straightened and paced over to the chair by her vanity where he settled himself with a sigh.
"Philippe kept a journal, as I have told you. Much of it was filled with boastful tales of his...conquests, but ten years ago, he recounted in writing the deathbed confession of our father..."
xXx
Journal of Philippe, Comte de Chagny
1865, 17 September
The Comte de Chagny is dead - long live the Comte de Chagny.
I should feel remorse at the passing of my own dear father, but the man has never endeared himself to anyone - least of all his own children. Raoul, of course, is devastated, but he is a tender hearted little fellow and young enough yet to have never tasted the wrath of Michel, Comte de Chagny. No doubt, in a few years he would have felt the onerous weight of the Comte's expectations upon his youthful shoulders. It was to have been the navy for little Raoul. The poor boy may enlist yet, just to honor the old man's memory.
Élise will not be so inclined. I believe that our dear sister is secretly celebrating her freedom from father's demands that she marry the sniveling fool that he had intended for her. She will now be able to enjoy a few more years of flirting with every eligible young man before settling on someone suitable.
As for myself, I am left with the title that I so coveted and the burden of my father's deathbed confession, the truth of which I can scarcely believe. Why he thought me a better choice for his last words than a priest I cannot fathom. I suspect that even until the very end he would not allow the De Chagny name to be tainted.
The old man called me to his bedside after the priest had gone and began to speak to me of my mother. I was astounded. In the more than twenty years since she passed, he had scarcely uttered two consecutive words about her. I had been so very young when she died that my only knowledge of her had been the small portrait that I found in a drawer and my aunt's tales of her beauty and talent.
Régine de Chagny had possessed a deep love of music, and according to Aunt Anne-Marie, she had the voice of an angel, though she only sang for those closest to her. My aunt assured me that my mother sang to me often as a child, and she had been the one to spark my father's appreciation of the arts.
I, myself, first took an interest in the opera solely in an attempt to become closer to my mother's memory, but it was my discovery of the fetching little ballerinas that has taken me back again and again. And Sorelli, of course.
My Giuliana made such a fine mistress - the way she would contort her body was enough to leave a man begging. I wonder how she is now, and that child that she claims is mine.
Unclaimed children seem something of a De Chagny trait, it would seem. My mother, God rest her soul, died in childbirth when I was but five. I can remember her troubled confinement and the curious awe that overcame me at watching her grow heavy with child. She would often place my little hand upon her rounded belly to feel the ripples of life beneath. After her death, I confess that I quickly developed a keen abhorrence for women in such a delicate condition.
I believed, as had everyone else, that the child she had borne - a son - died with her on that horrible night. Erik Michel de Chagny is the name upon the tiny memorial half buried by weeds next to my mother's grave - and the last words that she spoke upon this earth.
It appears that my father has deceived the lot of us. He told me with tears in his eyes that the child did not die that night, but came screaming into the world even as it ripped the life from my mother. She was said to have smiled at the babe as she whispered his name - joining her own family surname with that of her beloved husband. If only she had known! She was, by all accounts, blind to the twisted features of my brother's tiny face, bearing a deformity so severe that the devil himself must have cursed the babe in her womb. Or so my father claimed.
He was a proud man - and a jealous one. Upon seeing the child, he had been immediately convinced that his adored wife must have been unfaithful and that the babe could not be his. Of course, my poor mother was unable to defend herself, and half mad with grief, the illustrious Comte demanded that the child be taken from his sight. Such a creature could never be recognized as a De Chagny.
Apparently, with enough money and power, doctors can be quite easily convinced to falsify birth and death records. I shall have to take note of this for the future..
The child was then given to one of my mother's maids - a mercenary woman who apparently bled my father of quite a handsome sum of money to keep the child locked up and hidden away from the prying eyes of the world. He said her name was Madeline, though I do not recall the surname. She is dead now by his account, so it matters little.
This was all shocking enough for me to hear, but my father had yet more to confess. Despite the horrid deformity, my brother survived for more than eight years in that woman's custody before she somehow managed to lose him. No, the boy did not die. He escaped from her care and disappeared without a trace. I can only imagine how my father must have taken the news. I almost pity the woman - and I wonder if her death was a natural one.
Years later, whilst my father was living in Paris with his second wife and infant daughter - Raoul was still only a light of hope in their eyes - there was a story in the Époque about a freak from the traveling gypsy carnival who had murdered his keeper and fled into the night. The paper called him the Devil's Child. My father laughed weakly at this, telling me that must make him the devil. He believed it was the same boy - his long lost son. Apparently, he had come to believe that he was, in fact, the child's father.
'His eyes,' my father said.
The old man then claimed to have made a half-hearted attempt to locate the boy in Paris, thinking that perhaps he might hide his unfortunate son away in some nice little house with a more responsible custodian, but he was unable find the child.
My father begged for forgiveness with his last breaths, whether from God, or me, or that poor child that he had so cruelly cast away into the world, I will never know.
He died with a smile upon his face at having finally made his confession.
Now I wonder what I am meant to do with such an unbelievable story. Am I to seek out this missing heir? Or ignore his existence as my father had for so many years? He will be a man grown now, if he still lives. Who can know what such a creature might have become?
I cannot help but wonder some at the stories that Sorelli used to tell me as we lay spent in her bed after our assignations - stories of a ghost living at the opera house where she danced. She was always a superstitious girl to be sure, but she spoke of a phantom with only half a face.
Only a story, I pray. For God help us all if this phantom should be our missing brother.
A/N: Erik's origins will have further exploration in later chapters.
Thank you for all of your feedback, and I hope that you will continue to let me know how I am faring with the story.