Erik stared at her, dumbstruck.
"You what?"
"I want in, on the plan. The breaking in plan," she clarified, managing to say it without stuttering.
Erik glanced at Antoinette, hoping for backup. She merely looked at him, slightly alarmed but cautiously waiting to hear what else Christine would say on the matter.
"Why the devil would you want to do that?" he demanded. "It's absolutely out of the question. You're not going."
"No, Erik - hear me out. You've only been to his house a handful of times. I used to spend ages there when I was younger, I know every nook and cranny of that place. We'll save so much time if we go together, I know exactly which stairs creak, which doors are hidden behind veneers, where he keeps his secret items."
Erik listened but gave no sign of agreeing, so she continued, glancing at Madame Giry as she did, attempting to summon some of the woman's courage for her own even if she happened to disagree about letting Christine go with him.
"Besides, you don't know how tired I am of this - of this waiting and sitting around and doing nothing and being watched like some jewel in a case just waiting for a villain to snatch me away. I'm tired of having things happen to me as though I have no say in anything at all - I'm tired of being passive in this whole situation. I'm tired of- of being a burden, of being like some object you both have to guard," she wrung her hands in her earnestness. "I can do things too, you know. Raoul is so very dear to me, I love him so much, and it kills me to have to sit back and do absolutely nothing while I know he's out there needing help."
Erik gaped at her. He turned to Antoinette, who raised her eyebrows and quickly turned away. Christine caught the look and pled her case to the woman.
"Don't you agree with me, Madame?"
"Antoinette!" Erik admonished.
Antoinette threw her hands up in defeat.
"I am staying out of this one," she sighed. "It is my personal opinion that it's too dangerous for you, Christine. But... I am not the boss of you and your actions."
"Good heavens, Antoinette!" Erik sputtered. "If you aren't the boss of her, who is?"
"She's a grown woman, Erik," she shrugged. "She is her own boss. I can't stop her, but I can fully disapprove."
Erik ran a hand through his hair.
"Have you both gone mad?" he demanded. "Is no one going to stop this?"
"Christine- I really do think you shouldn't go, just to be on the safe side," she offered.
"Well-" Christine knew she had one last chance to win them over. "I know it might be unorthodox," she drew out every syllable of the word, causing Erik to narrow his eyes at her. "But consider this - if Philippe happens to catch someone in his home uninvited - who do you think he'll take kinder to - Erik, or his dear little childhood friend, Christine?"
Antoinette leaned back in her chair.
"She has you there, Erik," she shrugged.
Erik huffed. The nerve of these women!
But even he could see the wisdom in Christine's plan, though it pained him to admit it.
"I should certainly hope he would take kindly to finding you snooping around his house, because if anyone has to go with me on this little excursion, we are almost certainly going to be caught," he said stubbornly.
She crossed her arms and shook her head.
"No, you don't know that. Do you have any idea how many times I've snuck through that house in the middle of the night when I was younger? More times than you've snuck through it, I'm sure."
She felt she was being terribly rude, but his insistence that she would mess up the plan combined with how frustrated she felt doing nothing had left her in quite a cross mood.
He pressed a hand over his eyes, groaning.
"We will discuss this later," he settled on saying. "We have more important things to speak of at the moment."
He fished a notebook and pencil out of his pocket and pulled a chair up to the couch.
"How long have you known Philippe de Chagny?"
Christine raised an eyebrow. She would answer his questions, but if he thought he was going to distract her and make her forget about where she wanted to go that night, he was sorely mistaken.
"As long as I can remember, really. His father was a great fan of my father, and they became friends. I'd say I've always known him, really."
Erik nodded and scribbled something down on the notebook.
"How well would you say you know Philippe?"
She hesitated.
"Well, I know Raoul far better. Raoul's only a few years older than me, you know - Philippe is nearly eight years older than me. Raoul and I spent a lot of time together, and being brothers of course Philippe often hung around us as well, but it's hard to have things in common when there's such a big age gap, I'm sure you understand."
Erik swallowed against that tight feeling in his throat. He had no reasonable explanation as to why Christine's opinion that eight years was a such a big age gap disappointed him so - it was a big age gap, it was nearly a decade - and what did Erik care what Christine thought of age gaps, anyway?
"But I know him well enough, I'd say," she paused. "I know him as well as I'd like to know him."
"What can kind of a man would you say he is?"
"That's a very vague question, Monsieur."
Erik glanced up.
"And that's a very vague answer. Is he a good man, would you consider him morally upright," Erik rolled his eyes. "A decent man, and all the like?"
Christine considered before answering.
"Philippe is a... complicated man."
Erik said nothing, and Christine continued.
"He can be kind frequently, but he can also be cruel at times."
"How so?"
"Well," she thought for a moment. "One time when we were children, the three of us - Raoul, and him, and me - we were walking in the woods, as we liked to do sometimes. There was a tree that had fallen over the river, and Raoul was quite convinced it could be used as a bridge. Philippe said it would be too dangerous to try to cross - it had been raining quite a lot the past few days, so the river was much deeper than normal. Well, Raoul insisted on trying it, stepping out across it, and he almost made it halfway across before he ended up falling."
Christine shifted uncomfortably, obviously still disturbed by the memory.
"Poor little Raoul didn't know how to swim at the time, but Philippe refused to pull him out of the water. I ended up having to help him even though I was a weak swimmer myself. Philippe said it was Raoul's fault that he had fallen in and that he shouldn't have to save him from his own problems."
"An ass, even as a child," Erik murmured, writing down a note.
"But he's not all terrible, you know. He does care about Raoul, in his own way. He threw quite a party for him before he left for the Marine Nationale. He tended to him quite devotedly when he was seriously ill once, and he always tells people how proud he is of him."
"Hmph. I'm not here to hear you sing his praises, Christine. Tell more about what makes uncomfortable around him."
"Hmm... When Raoul was a little older, maybe about eleven, he had the most darling little dog. Raoul loved that dog dearly - he went everywhere with it outside, but his mother was quite insistent that it not come inside. But he took it with us on walks, and he could spend hours at a time playing fetch with it or brushing its soft fur... Except- except one day Raoul forgot to shut the gate. When he got up the next morning, the little dog had run off. That would have been that, but- Philippe had to go and mention that he knew the night before that Raoul had left the gate open, yet Philippe didn't close it on purpose, knowing the dog would get out."
She wrung her hands thinking about it.
"He let the dog escape to teach Raoul a lesson."
"Did- did the dog ever come back?" Erik couldn't stop the question from spilling out - he used to have a beloved dog as a child, too.
used to
She shook her head.
"No, we never saw it again."
He sighed.
"As I said, he can be complicated. He is not without his vices, also," she demurely smoothed down her skirts. "But then again, who among us isn't?"
Erik looked up from his notebook.
"Speak for yourself, Christine- I am practically a saint," he said gravely.
Antoinette choked on her tea.
Christine shook her head, trying to suppress a smile.
"Now, tell me about his vices. Is one of them, perhaps, drinking too much brandy in the early afternoon hours and passing out from intoxication while he has guest over?"
"Perhaps," she said measuredly.
He made a circular motion in the air with his pencil, as though to prompt her into continuing.
"Hmm, he's fond of card games, and of horse races. He's quite fond of anything you can bet on, really - and I don't think it's so terrible to bet on a game every now and then, except - except Philippe is also rather competitive. He can get very worked up sometimes, quite insistent on winning his money back... Sometimes he just doesn't know when to stop," she gave a little shrug.
Erik nodded and continued writing.
"And he is fond of drink, as you said. I feel it often brings the worst in him, amplifies his lesser qualities."
There was silence for a few moments, broken only by the scratch of the pencil and the gentle rustle of papers from Antoinette. Christine seemed to have said everything she had planned on saying about that topic.
"Christine, do you think Philippe is involved in his brother's disappearance?"
Christine's brow furrowed and she didn't reply right away.
"This shouldn't be a difficult question, you know," Erik pointed out. "He's either the kind of the man who would do something like to his own brother or he isn't."
"Well, I'm not certain, Erik. I would like to be able to say that no, he isn't capable of doing something like to him, except... I can't. Not honestly," she hesitated before continuing. "But that doesn't mean I think he actually is involved, you must understand - I only think that he is capable of it."
He sighed as he flipped through his notes, going over everything he had already asked her.
"That's all for now," he told her. "But I'm sure I'll have more to ask later on."
He rose from the chair.
"I assume, Antoinette, that you'll both be going home soon?" he asked hopefully.
She glanced up from her work.
"I do suppose so," she replied.
"Will you bring me back here, Madame, or will Erik come by your house to pick me up for tonight?" Christine chimed in.
Erik bit his lip. Damn.
"Christine," he grit out before Antoinette could answer. "How exactly do you think we'll be getting to the Comte's house?"
She considered it for a moment.
"I'm- I'm not certain... A carriage, perhaps?"
"We're just going to pull a carriage up in front of his house before breaking in? Shall we park it out in the open for all to see, hmm?"
She flushed at his condescending tone. It was almost enough to make her second guess his apparent kindness the previous day.
"Well alright, how are we getting there, then?"
"I was going on horseback, a plan that is now in jeopardy due to someone's insistence in accompanying me. I suppose I'll have to appropriate a horse for you as well - Nadir won't be pleased, but at least it won't be entirely my fault this time."
Erik was already mentally going through the small stable that belonged to Nadir, trying to think of another dark colored horse besides his own that lived there, when Christine interrupted his thoughts.
"Ahh, Erik - I don't actually know how to ride a horse," she frowned.
He turned to stare slack-jawed at Antoinette, who merely returned a weary look as she tried to remind herself that none of this was her problem. She gave a little shrug.
He turned back to Christine, vindicated.
"Then you can't go with me, after all. There's simply no way, unless- no, there's no way. You'll have to stay home. End of discussion."
"Are you sure?" Christine pleaded with him. "Are you very sure?"
"Would you make us walk, Christine? All the way there and back? An old man like me?"
He paused a moment, waiting for her to reply, but she only stared at him in silence and any minuscule hope he harbored of her refuting his being an 'old man' who couldn't handle a long walk was utterly dashed. He rambled on, attempting to ignore the sting he had inflicted on himself.
"There's only one other option, but you wouldn't like it, so it's not an option at all. I'll go by myself."
"What's the other option?" she lifted her chin in defiance.
He narrowed his eyes.
"It's not an option, Christine."
"How do you know that when you won't even tell me what it is?"
"Because," he said evenly. "We would both be riding on the same horse. I'm sure you can see why that's less than ideal."
A look of deep concern came over her face and she wrung her hands.
"Oh, oh, I see what you mean, of course," she said, and Erik relaxed just slightly, certain that she had finally given up on going.
"The horse would mind terribly, wouldn't it?" she asked after a moment, and his shoulders stiffened once more. "I suppose the poor thing isn't used to carrying two people at once..."
"Cesar... has carried two riders in the past," the words escaped his lips against his will, and he cursed himself for even bringing it up at all.
"Oh," she nodded thoughtfully. "So will I meet you here or will you come by Madame's tonight?" she asked once more, as though the matter were settled.
He released a huff of a breath between his teeth and turned away from her. This woman would be the death of him.
Antoinette tried her best to suppress any smirk or laugh. Christine had always been a very polite and courteous child, but even then she had a streak of strong will running through her. That streak seemed to have only grown as the years went on, magnified even more by her time in England. Poor Erik probably didn't realize what he was getting into - he was so used to simply being able to boss his clients around, most of them secretly too afraid to say anything to the contrary. It was a situation that often worked in everyone's favor, especially in cases where he was guarding someone. But this - Erik had certainly never had to deal with someone like this before, and Antoinette knew she was going to enjoy watching it play out.