Hello all,
Very short chapter here; sorry. I'll post another one soon as compensation. I hope you all like it, though, as it's beginning to be drama time. Remember that letter that Christine was going to send Raoul? Well... best laid plans and all that.
Chapter 34. July 1887.
"Monsieur, this came today."
The old butler, loyal to the end to whomever the head of the de Chagny family was, had been instructed to bring all mail addressed to the Vicomte to his brother first. Now he set a letter gently on the silver breakfast tray, and the Comte de Chagny picked it up incredulously.
"I don't believe it," he said, and the butler stood back and folded his hands in front of him.
"Has my brother seen this?" demanded Philippe sharply, brandishing the envelope with the all-too-familiar handwriting. Mademoiselle Daae, luckily given the circumstances, had a particularly distinctive script. And as anything connected with her was exceptionally, and therefore memorably, distasteful to Philippe, he had no trouble recognizing it.
"No, Monsieur. I brought it to you first, as you've ordered."
"Good."
"Will there be anything else, Monsieur?"
"No."
The butler withdrew silently, and Philippe finished his breakfast hastily, fuming. That little chit had written to Raoul breaking off their ridiculous "engagement" three months ago; Philippe had had to spend a disagreeable hour consoling Raoul after he read the letter, and then put up with his tears and rages ever since. And that was after the damnable night spent on the road to Brussels, bouncing about in a speeding carriage like a bee in a bottle as he strove to catch what he thought were a fleeing pair of lovebirds, intent on elopement.
But the pursuit had proved fruitless, and Philippe had eventually given up and told the coachman to turn back. Once he made it back to Paris, tired and furious, he had gone for the authorities, believing the situation finally out of his ability to control it; the emergency now worse than any scandal that might ensue from enlisting the strong hand of the law and making things official. And it had been a most unpleasant surprise indeed to find those authorities occupied with the restraint of Raoul, who had been found running through the upper parts of the Opera House, shouting like a lunatic about ghosts and torture chambers, and the need to find Mademoiselle Daae instantly. It seemed that when the police were called, they had tried to calm the Vicomte down, and he had thrown a punch at one of them, causing them to summarily arrest him and haul him off to the police station. Philippe had been very nearly speechless.
"What in God's name is the matter with you?" he had demanded.
"She's down there, she's down there with him I tell you!" cried Raoul, so frantic that he was nearly foaming at the mouth. "He'll kill her or worse! We have to go down there after her! Make them let me go, Philippe!"
"I shall certainly get you freed, but you are not going anywhere after that," said Philippe severely. Using his considerable power as the head of an old and noble family, he had indeed convinced the police to let Raoul go, and then bundled his brother into the carriage and taken him back to their townhouse, praying all the way that the bribes he had handed round to the wide-eyed policemen watching the imbroglio would work as intended, and the tale of this shameful episode would not get out. It had, though; one of the gendarmes had talked to the press after all, and soon it was all over the city. Some of the worse gossip-rags, not content with tales of the Vicomte's inexplicable madness, had actually taken to printing rumours that the Comte had been murdered by "the Phantom." Philippe had not deigned to make any public comment about these, of course, such conduct being unbecoming to a nobleman. He would simply ignore them, as usual, and let his reputation and his continued appearances, obviously not dead, speak for themselves. But it was mortifying to have his family's name dragged through the muck like this, with people telling ever more fantastic stories about what had happened, and Philippe heartily cursed both the Daae girl and "the Phantom," whoever he was.
A doctor had been called, and gave it as his opinion that Raoul's mind was almost completely broken, and that he must have absolute rest and quiet. Raoul's opinion had been quite the opposite, of course, but to no avail. Philippe had had him locked in his suite of rooms, and threatened to call for restraints if there were any attempts at escape. The Comte had stationed two burly footmen outside his brother's door, and two more below his balcony. The prisoner had ranted, pleaded, and finally paced incessantly for two days, until he collapsed onto his bed and slept like the dead. By the time Raoul awoke, Mademoiselle Daae's first letter had arrived. Philippe took it up to his brother himself.
"You see?" he'd said quietly. "She is alive and well. You need not worry any more about her life and virtue. She has thrown you over, old fellow. You must forget her; she was never worth your regard."
"My God…" whispered Raoul, holding the letter in hands that shook so badly that his brother felt obliged to pour him a brandy. The Vicomte choked when he swallowed it, and then sat down very suddenly on the bed.
"I would have given my life for her…I tried so hard, so hard to rescue her, and it so nearly killed me…How could she do this?"
Raoul put his face into his hands and sobbed. Philippe patted his back.
"Brother, you are ill," said the Comte gently. "Your brain is fevered, and things seem real to you which are not. You must forget your hallucinations, and get well. And you must forget that girl."
Despite his utter conviction that Raoul was making far more out of this than was required, still the Comte could not bear to see his baby brother so devastated, and he had stayed with him as he wept. And things had not gotten much better since that afternoon when Philippe had called off the guards and unlocked the bedroom doors. Raoul was not getting over that cheap bit of baggage. If the boy would only find solace with some other tart, like a normal young man! But Raoul would not. That stupid vow of chastity until marriage which he had taken! It just wasn't natural at all. No wonder, thought Philippe, who was an expert at finding repose in the arms of a willing woman, that his brother's mind was diseased so.
And what the hell did the girl mean by sending Raoul a letter now, out of the blue? That was the very last thing he needed. No doubt her other suitor had grown tired of her, and now she was running back to the credulous Raoul in hopes of finding another patron to support her. Actresses were all the same. On all other accounts the Vicomte appeared to be possessed of a perfectly normal intelligence, and actually had done quite well in his studies; why could he not comprehend this very basic fact? Thank God Raoul was going back to his ship in a month for the long-delayed rescue mission, after which he would be absent from Paris for quite a long time, and safe from marauding opera singers intent on reeling the poor boy back in all over again.
Philippe swallowed the last of his coffee, and then got up, went to the wastebasket, and with great deliberation tore the envelope and the letter it contained into shreds. Then he rang for a servant, to take the evidence away and burn it.
O-O-O O-O-O
