Monsieur Faucher, maternal uncle of Raoul de Chagny, was not a particularly tall man, and his features were gaunt and severe. When he silently arrived at the dinner table, he wore a dark green waistcoat, a gray scarf, and a pair of spectacles. He was bald and mustachioed, and while she wouldn't have said this aloud, Christine was unsure if he was closer to forty or eighty.
"Ah!" Raoul exclaimed, as both of the de Chagnys stood to greet him. "It is good to see you, Uncle! This is my lovely wife, Christine. Thank you so much for your hospitality."
He nodded politely to Christine and shook both of their hands before taking his place at the head of the table.
"You have a lovely estate," said Christine.
"Thank you, Madame," said Faucher politely, settling into his meal without another word.
Christine and Raoul followed suit. They had been given linguine with a white wine sauce, a fresh salad, and crisp pears.
"My mother sends her love," Raoul said, tearing through a piece of bread. "She also says not to be a stranger."
Faucher nodded without looking up.
"She also says not to allow Christine and I to destroy your carpet," Raoul continued.
This, at last, caught Faucher's attention. "How on earth would you accomplish that?"
"A great deal of mud, Monsieur," said Christine.
They waited for him to question him further, but this bizarrely seemed to be enough information for him, and Faucher settled instantly back into his meal.
Raoul and Christine stared at each other over the table.
When Christine gave the tiniest shrug, Raoul tried a new tactic. "It's been many years since you've seen my mother, has it not?"
Faucher swallowed a mouthful of food. "You know very well that it has, boy."
This statement, sharply delivered, invited no more conversation, and they finished their meal in silence, Raoul and Christine communicating only through familiar glances and expressions that Faucher, eyes glued to his plate or to the opposite wall, seemed neither to notice nor care about.
He quickly vanished soon after dinner had concluded, and his mildly dejected visitors trudged back up the stairs towards their room.
"That was awfully painful," said Christine. "I can't imagine why he accepted our request to visit if he meant to ignore us entirely."
"I suppose that I did say in my letter that he didn't have to entertain us," said Raoul. "By God, Erik said more to me than my uncle, who is by all accounts a law-abiding person with no personal grudge against me whatsoever."
"He what?"
"Well, according to Mother, there was some funny business regarding a high-ranking English official with whom he…"
"No, no," said Christine, lightly whacking his arm. "I meant Erik – he spoke to you?"
Raoul paused, thinking. "…come to think of it, I'm not sure. I want to say he agreed with me on something… but he certainly acknowledged my presence, which is more than I can say for my own uncle!"
He turned to Christine; she looked up at him, dazed and distressed. Realizing his mistake, he backtracked. "Damn, Christine, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to be insensitive…"
"What? No," she said, taking his face in her hands. "I'm sorry. I know you hoped that your uncle would be more – more welcoming, more accepting, than your family at home. I'm sorry he didn't come through for you."
Smiling warmly, Raoul reached up to cover one of her hands with his. "But what does it matter, wife of mine? You are my family now."
Christine smiled, her distress fading quickly. He leaned forward, kissing her deeply. She tangled her hands in his hair, and when they pulled away, their foreheads rested against each other. Christine sighed in contentment.
"We have a long day of travel behind us," said Raoul. "We should rest so we will be ready to explore the grounds tomorrow."
"You're tired? The sun has only just gone down," said Christine.
Raoul scoffed in mock outrage. "I have my wife all to myself in a lovely country abode, and you expect me not to romance her? Am I a joke to you?"
Christine laughed, tugging on his arms and pulling him down the hallway.
Many hours later, Raoul awoke slowly, his half-closed eyes focusing on the dim blue light from the window. As his sight adjusted to the darkness, he saw the clock on the nightstand, its hands pointing to half past two. Yawning, he rolled over, letting himself start to slip back under. But the space next to him was empty.
He awoke more clearly, sitting up and staring at the pulled-over comforter as if he expected it to move. The bedroom was empty, and Raoul quickly crawled out of bed, pulling his discarded nightclothes on and venturing out into the dark hallway. For a moment he stood, shivering, looking down one way and then the other. Far down the hall, a beam of light splayed across the floor, and he walked towards it. As he approached the door, he heard a faint sound – the notes of a piano.
Now, already knowing what he would find inside, Raoul paused in the doorway, listening. The song was peaceful… mournful. He'd heard her play it before, and he knew it was one of her favorites. Gently pushing open the door, he entered the room to see a grand library, lined with bookshelves that reached up to the ceiling and fit every portion of the wall, excluding the window. A small grand piano sat framed by the window, onto which Christine had placed a single lit lamp. She sat at its keys, her dark hair loose and wild, playing gently.
Christine glanced up as he entered, and smiled lightly, but did not pause in her song. Raoul settled into an armchair across the room, closed his eyes, and listened.
Raoul knew that playing the piano reminded her of the ghost. Her voice would forever be the shrine to her father, but the piano had been Erik's instrument, and sometimes, it was Erik who Raoul heard when Christine played. A younger, more naïve version of himself might have been filled with jealousy and anger at her simple, profound display of grief. But here, now, he could only share her pain as the soft and, yes, slightly out-of-tune notes washed over him. Raoul closed his eyes. He saw Erik's face, shocked and scared, as innocence a presence as Raoul's on in that diner. In a far older memory, he saw Erik's face again - distorted, furious, threatening and bargaining and so broken, and only now did Raoul feel a rush of something that wasn't quite anger, but was very similar, as he remembered Christine's sobs, her pleas…
Raoul opened his eyes to see Christine watching him, having finished the piece and laid the cover over the keys. They sat in tranquil silence, each lost in their own thoughts.
"Can I ask you something?" Raoul said.
"Of course."
"Did you love him?"
He half expected her to recoil at the question, but instead, Christine stared into space, lost in thought. She pulled her legs onto the bench and crossed them.
"I'm not sure that I know," she replied, slowly, as if testing how each word sounded. "Who truly understands all the ways we love one another? I know that I did love him, as he was someone very dear to me, but I know that's not quite what you mean."
Raoul nodded, but did not speak.
"I don't think I'll ever understand whether he truly loved me, either," Christine went on. "To fight so savagely – to frighten someone – it must be very difficult to do these things if you truly love someone."
"Surely you can't think that he didn't have feelings for you," said Raoul, not unkindly.
"Well, that much seemed obvious. And I know he cared for me, as he did for each of the few people he trusted." Christine looked over at Raoul. "But he was so afraid, Raoul. Afraid to be rejected, afraid to never be loved – in any way – afraid to live the rest of his days underground." She shook her head slowly. "What he did, to me and to everyone, those are things one does out of fear, not out of love."
She got up, crossing the room, and nimbly crawling up onto the chair with him. She leaned her head on his shoulder, resting against him. Raoul wrapped his arms around her and closed his eyes again, breathing in the scent of her hair.
"May I be perfectly honest with you?" Christine said.
"Always, darling."
"It may be difficult to hear."
"All the better for you to be honest."
Christine took a deep breath. "I love you very much, but in the beginning, back when Erik revealed himself to me, I think I was motivated by fear, too. I didn't know what he would do. I didn't know what he was capable of, and you were there, comforting and kind. You offered me an existence where I wouldn't have to be afraid anymore. And, God, I'd been on my own for years by then, since my father passed. You know how far I strayed from the light, without Erik's interference whatsoever. I was broken and vulnerable, so vulnerable that I accepted the impossible story of an angel, knowing in my heart it was a lie, because I wanted so desperately for someone else to take my fears from me for a while."
She sniffed; when she spoke again, her voice was thick with tears. "And then Erik started killing people, and he wanted me to stay with him forever, and… Raoul, I must admit to you that when I did fall in love with you, it was when that nightmare was over. You were so kind. I thought maybe you would be angry - angry that maybe I had brought about what happened to you. But you helped me to grieve, and you listened when I spoke about him, and you offered to end our engagement if it wasn't what I wanted. And you weren't angry that I wanted to keep singing, or that I wanted to learn to play the piano and the violin, and…"
Christine buried her face into his shoulder, and Raoul could only hold her tightly; he knew if he attempted to speak, he would only let loose his own tears.
"I don't want you to think that I don't love you," Christine said between sobs. "You have been so supportive of me, and…"
Raoul decided his tears no longer outweighed what he wanted to say. "Christine, darling, everything is okay," he said, lifting her chin so they were face to face. "I understand completely."
"You do?" Christine's voice was thick with emotion.
"Well maybe not understand understand," said Raoul. "But I understand what you are saying to me. And I think you are so brave – yes, brave! – for having gone what you have been through, and still finding ways to feel compassionate towards the people who have hurt you. I know I was abrasive back then. I didn't believe you about Erik right away, and once I did, I only decided to kill him despite your protests. I behaved monstrously. You didn't deserve that, not from him or from me."
Christine's eyes searched his face desperately, and then she seemed to relax.
"And that wasn't difficult to hear," he added.
"Are you certain? You're crying, Raoul."
"Well, you've certainly said easier things," he said, causing her to snort in an unladylike manner that he adored. "But nothing in this world matters more to me than you. I want you to tell me everything that I need to hear."
"I love you," she said vehemently.
"I love you," he echoed, wiping the tears from her face and chuckling softly when she did the same for him, bumping their wrists together clumsily.
"Do you ever worry that I did love him?" Christine asked, taking one of her hands in both of his.
"Not worry so much as simply speculate," said Raoul.
"I couldn't bear it if you couldn't trust me."
"Ah, but I do," he replied. Christine leaned back into his embrace, and they sat in a companiable silence for some time, content in each other's warmth and the settling of their emotions.
"I suppose that tomorrow, we should talk about what we're going to do about Erik," said Christine, yawning.
"As long as that conversation takes place in a tree or a boat or someplace exciting," said Raoul.
Christine giggled. "Have you really grown up at all?"
"No."
"Perhaps we ought to send Erik a gift."
"Hm," said Raoul. "What do you have in mind?"
"Something new, something electric," said Christine. "My, don't you think he might appreciate some sort of large, ornate, light fixture?"
Her words took a moment to register, and then Raoul hollered with laughter, and Christine nearly had to smother him to prevent him from waking up the others asleep in the house.
Many thanks to those who have been waiting for an update. Life has been tough recently, but it feels nice to get back to this story.
Christine's song is Chopin's Nocturne Op. 15 No. 2 in F-sharp major. I played it a few years ago; it's very beautiful.