"Why?" he dashed towards me, stopping mere inches from my face.
Another simple question, but the answer was far more complex. "I hate to hurt you, to tie you down any longer than I already have, Raoul." I reached out to cup his cheek with my palm, but he recoiled like an injured animal.
"Hurt me, tie me down, what are you talking about, Christine?" He shook his head at me in bewildered frustration. It was at that moment that I came to the morbid realization that my husband had never even acknowledged the existence of the massive void that lay between us.
"You have brought me nothing but joy. Is this something to do with the fact that you have not conceived an heir for the Chagny line?" His tone turned sympathetic and caring, and unlike him, I did not flinch when he moved to caress my cheek. "You should know, I did not marry you so that you could sit at home and nurse future Comtes, Christine. I married you because I love you."
"I know, Raoul. You've been so very patient with me, but the issue of an heir has nothing to do with my decision."
"Don't you love me, Christine? Have I done anything to upset you, to push you away?" His self-pitying assumption that he had been at all influential in my decision to leave only made my guilt rise to almost suffocating levels.
"Raoul, you have done nothing wrong. Don't you see, my darling. . .you and I were never meant to be lovers." I trapped him within my gaze, hoping to enlighten him to the enormity of the situation.
"You're speaking as if you've gone mad, Christine. We have been meant for one another since childhood! Your father even wished it so!"
"Do not bring my father into this conversation, Raoul!" I was utterly baffled at my sudden outburst, but anger was obviously boiling under my calm exterior. I made no effort to control its heat.
He stared at me in what could only be described as mute horror. "What has come over you, Christine? How can you look at me so calmly and tell me you are ending our marriage?"
"Surely, you have felt, as I have from the very beginning, that it was not to be. . ."It had all seemed so obvious, so painfully apparent, to me from the moment Raoul placed a sizable wedding band upon my finger, that we were committing ourselves to an infatuation that had already grown stale.
Childish love is simply that. . .childish to the very core of what one believes, at the time, to be an unquenchable thirst for another person. In actuality, it is merely a game played by those fascinated by new feelings that have lain silent until that first meeting. Childish love is fickle and does not tend to last longer than a season's worth of courtship and shy embraces. It could be scripted if one took the time to reminisce on the past, on old sweethearts. . .
But, I was still too young to recall my marriage to the recently-titled Comte de Chagny with any bittersweet fondness. I felt far too guilty and foolish to allow images of romance, clandestine meeting on the roofs of certain opera houses, to cloud my reasoning. Secret engagements and other games to rival fairy tales. I had grown to despise any fairy tale of the conventional sort. . .being that with the proverbial happy ending.
I needed something more. I was not content to live a life which could be predicted with complete accuracy from the start of my marriage to the evening I would inevitably lie on my deathbed, surrounded by strapping blonde Chagny heirs. My maestro had taught me other things outside the realm of music. He had, even if he had not meant to impart such wisdom, shown me worldly truths and the depths of all-consuming passions. In all honesty, my mind often wandered to that white mask as my husband and I shared our marriage bed. Every single embrace was haunted by the memory of that single kiss that had remained more intimate and sacred than any night of love-making with my Raoul.
"I have not been entirely unhappy, Raoul. And I do not blame you for my restlessness. I hope, above all, that you will place the blame on me, and only on me, for the dissolution of our marriage. It is my decision. I can not fight him any longer. I can not fight my feelings. I have always loved him. I am sorry."
Before he had an opportunity to respond, I reached down to curl my fingers around the handles of two of my valises. The final threshold, Erik, had sung. I meant to fulfill my true wifely duties, to meet his every desire with my own and to rival it in its passion.
The carriage that would take me to the train station rolled up to the entrance of the manor, as if I had summoned it to retrieve its passenger at the perfect moment. I could not stop myself from stealing a glance back at my bewildered husband, as he stood, hands pressed firmly on the sides of the door frames; an angry Samson prepared to buckle the pillars of his temple. I swore at the moment I stepped into the carriage, that he let out a howl of sorts. Not that of ungodly anger, but more akin to the sound of a trapped animal who only wishes to be relieved of misery.
As the driver shut the carriage door, I promised my husband that he would be glad I had left, that, in the end, he would find a woman far more suitable than an orphaned chorine. I could not have spoken the vow to his face, I knew, for we had never truly existed for one another. Instead, we had played the game of youth, fitting ourselves to the molds of genteel society, shaping our thoughts and desires to that which would please the other. For Raoul, I had acted the role of La Cenerentola, waiting to be rescued, not just from poverty but from the ogre in the tower. And perhaps, it would have played itself out just as it closes in the storybook tales.
But, there was a great incongruence with my own life and that of La Cenerentola and all the other heroines of fanciful tales. There had never been an ogre in my life. Or if there had been, it had been the heroine. For I had caused such pain. Not Erik. A frog prince, maybe. But never an ogre or a troll.
It was time to make things right, finally, to end the ceaseless pain of it all. I leaned my head out of the brougham window and yelled to my chauffeur. "To Paris, the Rue di Rivoli, the Madeleine. Quickly, please!"
He grinned back at me with a cocky nod, certain that he would be receiving a generous fare if he managed to carry his passenger safely to the great city. "Vite! Vite" he summoned the two mares under his crop.
I would use the length of the journey to formulate a plan, to catch Erik, to entice him from his sorrow, and his cave. Whatever beauty was left in me desired nothing more to be united with its beast.